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Pepsi Marketing

The New Obama Image of the Soft Drink

Feb 22, 2009 Jared Plotkin

Over the years, Pepsi has had several different marketing campaigns -- with mixed success. Its latest strategy? An apparent embrace of President Obama.

Pepsi has long tried to appeal to a younger demographic -- recall its "The choice of a new generation" slogan a couple of decades ago to woo generation X. Its latest strategy appears to be an all-out embrace of President Barack Obama.

Obama and Pepsi

Back in August of 2008, well before Barack Obama's election to the Presidency, James Ledbetter wrote an excellent article comparing the Democratic nominee to Pepsi. The article goes through many coincidences, such as Obama's having accepted the Democratic nomination for President at the Denver Pepsi center, and Obama's having been seen drinking Pepsi products. It also shows how Pepsi has traditionally marketed towards African Americans and the youth, similar to Obama's support base. Lebetter also noted that Pepsi does better in blind taste tests than it did in actual sales, similar to how Democratic policy positions are often more popular with the public than actual Democratic candidates.

New Pepsi Logo

Shortly after the election, Pepsi revealed its new logo, which was even more similar to Barack Obama's logo than the old one, which was quite similar in its own right. In addition, the company ran commercials during the inauguration that appeared to support the new President. Billboards displayed messages with slogans such as "Hope" or "Hooray" with the letter "o" represented with the new logo, in a similar way to how Barack Obama used his logo during the campaign.

Pepsi Obama Ad

The new television ads for Pepsi seemed so promotional of Obama that a parody ad was made out of them. The ad begins with greetings in english and in other languages, which is perhaps a nod to the claim Obama made in Germany that he wants to be a "citizen of the world." It then follows by saying "It's time for optimism," and "it's time for for joy," and "hooray." It then goes on to say "all for one, one for all." This is the english rendering of "E pluribus unum," which used to be the American national motto until it was replaced in the 1950s with "In God we Trust." The motto, however, seems distinctly Obama's in these times, because conservatives opposing him were so upset that he wanted to "spread the wealth around," and otherwise help the poor and disadvantaged.

The New Pepsi Marketing is a new image for a soft drink: it all but endorses a political candidate. Not since the days of political machines have companies and political parties been so close. Yet, Pepsi is clearly not doing this marketing because it wants Obama to owe them a favor, as it was in the days of political machines -- rather, Pepsi sees that Barack Obama is so popular that simply by being associated with him, they hope to have their sales increase.

The copyright of the article Pepsi Marketing in Marketing/PR is owned by Jared Plotkin. Permission to republish Pepsi Marketing in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

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