PepsiCo 'Powers' Ahead with the NFL

Purchase, N.Y. — PepsiCo kicked off a renewed 10-year, $2.3 billion partnership with the National Football League in 2012. Part of its ongoing “Power of One” effort to leverage its snacks and beverages together, the partnership will culminate in Pepsi’s title sponsorship of the Super Bowl halftime show on Feb. 3.It’s all about driving sales, says Anne Fink, senior vice president and general manager, PepsiCo Sales. “Sports give us a unique opportunity to connect with our retail partners and drive sales at the store level. We are able to find ways to make their stores exciting.”Fink says the partnership enables PepsiCo to reach a passionate NFL fan base of over 180 million consumers. Therefore, PepsiCo can create a high-impact POS campaign for retailers on a massive scale that touches all of the major Frito-Lay and Pepsi brands. “We’ve done a lot of different things in the past that bring our portfolio together, but this one is bigger in terms of the brands it encompasses and reach we have,” Fink says.PepsiCo launched its “Make Your Game Day Official” promotion in September, building on a “Rock Your Summer” effort that included a “Match.Snap.Win” component. Consumers who snap pictures of Frito-Lay and Pepsi products together and upload them to GameDayOfficial.com can engage with NFL polls and trivia to win prizes such as $50 NFLshop.com gift cards, GMC trucks, home entertainment centers and trips to the Super Bowl.PepsiCo benefits from the fact that consumers are already familiar with the snap-and-send program. “It promotes the co-purchase of our products and incents consumers to purchase them together to enter the contest via mobile and email,” Fink says. “You don’t need a smartphone app or a QR code, so it allows for scale.”PepsiCo received 80,000 contest entries in the first wave of the promotion, which ran through mid-October. Two subsequent waves were tied to Thanksgiving and the Super Bowl.The PepsiCo/NFL partnership goes far beyond that digital/social component. “It’s a continuity program that we’re able to capture from kickoff [in September] all the way through to the Super Bowl, with so many events on the calendar in between,” says Fink. Packaging across brands reflects the spirit of football, while joint Frito-Lay and Pepsi in-store displays show how PepsiCo foods and beverages together can enhance football moments.The displays feature football cues as well as one Pepsi/Frito-Lay product pairing. A fully customizable toolkit allows retailers to use POS elements and promotional tactics based on specific store needs and the local NFL team colors and logos. PepsiCo declined to name vendors.“Retailers look to us as having the right portfolio to anchor anything we do with the party occasion for their shoppers,” says Fink. “It’s about everything from packaging, to making sure we’re sending a consistent message from one brand to the next, to customized in-store engagement.”From a shopper engagement perspective, the number of brands included and the time frame it encompasses, the PepsiCo/NFL partnership is “the most comprehensive program we’ve done,” Fink says. “All of the different elements, from in-store to digital, are brought together.”

PepsiCo 'Powers' Ahead with the NFL

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