Despite all the drama surrounding the platform following its purchase by Elon Musk and the rise of social rival TikTok, PepsiCo will once again advertise on Twitter during the Super Bowl.
“For a great live cultural moment like the Super Bowl, part of the journey comes from those live chats and real-time debates, hot topics, and all the fun that comes from what’s one of the biggest watch parties on the planet,” said PepsiCo. CMO Todd Kaplan, who added that it was the first time the brand would advertise on Twitter in three years due to the pandemic.
One of PepsiCo’s goals, Kaplan said, is to ensure that during gameplay there is a higher level of brand engagement and conversation on the social platform, specifically, Pepsi Zero. Sugar. Pepsi will provide live in-game commentary, links to in-game commercials for the brand, in addition to talking about this “is it real or does it act” concept, which relates to one of its two Super Bowls ads. PepsiCo did not respond to requests for clarification on the company’s earned media versus paid media strategy.
That said, according to a report published by Information, Pepsico plans to spend more than $3 million during the Super Bowl to build brand awareness through game-day Twitter ads, which is the most profitable advertising event on the social media platform for any the year. And the the platform offers $250,000 of free advertising space for Super Bowl advertisers to influence them in the app. It remains to be seen whether this offer – which depends on advertisers spending the same amount on the platform – will win them back. So far, Pepsi and Anheuser-Busch InBev are the only brands to have jumped on the offer.
Although they have a social media war room, Kaplan did not reveal how many team members will be running it, but added that war rooms are important for a brand that wants to strategize. of social media for a Super Bowl-scale event.
“You never know what’s going to happen even in the game itself. I mean, it’s live sports too,” Kaplan said. “As this unfolds, how do you react? How to talk about things? And we’ve done that, I think quite effectively over the last few years, by gaining a share of voice among all advertisers.
Adam Dornbusch, CEO of content management platform, EnTribe, says tapping into Twitter’s audience on the biggest love sports night of the year is the right move for a brand looking to make its mark. know on social media, “Pepsi is smart to have time-related social media and Super Bowl activation is a great excuse to capture a large, engaging audience,” Dornbusch said.
Following Musk’s takeover last fall, Twitter has become a problematic platform for some advertisers, and many have withdrawn money from the platform to avoid being embroiled in the chaos that accompanied the change in ownership.
“Despite its recent challenges, Twitter is still the place where conversations happen in real time at big events like the Grammy’s, the Golden Globes or the Super Bowl,” said Lauren Douglas, vice president, global marketing of the video technology platform, Channel Factory. “It makes sense that brands like Pepsi, who want to extend the real-time impact of their investment and tease their ads in advance, always see an opportunity on Twitter. He’ll say what other brands follow suit and what events will attract advertisers to the platform.”
According to Kaplan, Pepsico is aware that consumers are moving from Twitter to new social platforms such as Hive and Mastodon, but will not run ads during the Super Bowl on these new platforms or on popular platforms like TikTok or Instagram.