I don’t know about you, but I’ve been noticing that good values are becoming more and more popular among sales pitches. Dove commercials promote inner beauty, Toyota promotes going green, and soda companies are now donating profits to charities.
Pepsi-Cola recently announced that they will donate $20 million to local organizations by the end of each year. In my opinion, I think this route will not only inspire consumers to take part in buying their product, but also do well for others in their own personal ways. Pepsi is setting a great example for everyone to care about those around them and real issues, rather than purely buying a product to appear “cool” and climb up the social latter. By buying Pepsi, it appears that you are helping society. I admit, I’m not much of a soda drinker myself, but I’m even inspired to buy a Pepsi solely because it seems like the selfless thing to do.
Pepsi-Cola will be utilizing social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and even Hulu, to get their product’s new intentions out there. Coca-Cola, Pepsi’s #1 competition, caught wave of the movement and decided to use one of the nation’s most popular social networking sites, Facebook, to promote their product. They announced that they “will donate a dollar to the Boys and Girls Clubs of America each time a visitor to the Coca-Cola fan page on Facebook” (Elliott, 2010). Now it seems that the two companies are competing to appear more generous to society. I love this new form of competition. Although there appears to be a hidden agenda, they’re still donating and people are still benefitting.
By utilizing social networking sites, the companies are inviting users to interact and be a part of helping society. Do you think this is more effective than solely displaying their actions in television commercials? Do you think promoting to be selfless and heroic is more effective than promoting to be sociable and cool?
Check out the full article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/01/business/media/01adco.html?ref=media
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I also thought that not buying any ad time for the super bowl was a pretty bold move also. Since thats one of the only times I can think of when people actully want to see the commercials during a show. I guess it was the first time in 23 years that there wasnt a pepsi commercial. but maybe they will use the money they saved from the super bowl to donate.
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