This has to sting a little. After 48 years, Pepsi is switching creative firms for branding and communications.
NEW YORK PepsiCo is shifting lead U.S. creative duties on its flagship cola brand as well as Diet Pepsi from BBDO to TBWA\Chiat\Day, Pepsi said today.
Major media spending on the Pepsi and Diet Pepsi brands exceeded $90 million last year, including about $60 million on Pepsi alone, according to Nielsen Monitor-Plus.
The shift came after a review involving two Omnicom Group shops: TBWA\C\D in Playa del Rey, Calif., and BBDO here, which has handled the Pepsi brand since 1960, said sources. TBWA\C\D is also a Pepsi roster shop, handling creative duties on Gatorade.
I wonder if it has anything to do with this.
(I know Chris the prognosticator will have thoughts.)
It’s strange that it would happen so quickly after its logo and package re-design.
The funny thing about the new god awful logo/packaging is that BBDO had nothing to do with it. The Arnell Group (who don’t even have a real website) made that mess.
And what makes even less sense is…
“BBDO will continue to handle other Pepsi brands, according to Burwick, including Pepsi Max, Mountain Dew, AMP Energy and the North American Coffee Partnership (with Starbucks). BBDO also will continue to handle the Pepsi brand, and others, outside the U.S.”
So really they just lost US Pepsi and Diet Pepsi? Make up your mind Pepsi. Decisions like this are why Pepsi will always be number 2.
Also, just in case it wasn’t clear, I really hate the new logo/packaging for all Pepsi brands. Its terrible.
There’s no accounting for taste. Wait, I mean…we HAVE to account for taste, too. Pepsi simply doesn’t taste as good as Coke, IMHO. So maybe that’s why they’ll always be number two. But they don’t have to act like it. And flailing around with new branding and branding firms seems like they’re acting like number two, which was kinda the point of my original post.
Also, it was Pepsi who made the decision to rebrand all of their products, whether Arnell did it or whoever. There’s where the real problem lies to begin with, discounting for a moment whether you like the new look(s). (Chris seems agnostic on this point.)
Pepsi is totally to blame for everything. A history of questionable decisions have lead to where they are. And stopping a company from dealing with 2 aspects of the company but allowing them to continue to handle the others is dumb and evidence to Pepsi’s lack of for sight.
My job flavors my opinion of the subject and thus I focus on the look and the company that made that look. But in the end it is always the client’s decision and they hold the blame no matter who that client is. The client makes that final call, they pull the trigger. Pepsi is to blame for its ugly look, no matter who actually made it.
Like I said. Agnostic.