Dr Pepper's Social Media Success

Three ways the soda giant grew their business and threatened Pepsi and Coke

Check out the dashboard we used to analyze this insight in Infegy Starscape !

Dr. Pepper, a beloved yet formerly smaller brand, has become a fearsome competitor for Coke and Pepsi, the two long-time soda leaders in the United States. What makes Dr. Pepper's growth so interesting is how old yet nimble the brand has become on social media over the last decade. Dr. Pepper, founded in 1885, had been seen as a third fiddle to the mega soda brands, but has maneuvered itself into a competitive spot where they've begun to challenge them. Legacy brands (think GE, Proctor and Gamble, and Dr. Pepper) have the advantage of being a known quantity but have the disadvantage of being locked into a narrative. Dr. Pepper has taken advantage of being known and achieving the agility of a smaller, younger brand.

Social media and digital growth have been critical to their success. Over the last ten years, Dr. Pepper has grown its brand presence by 296% in post volume by reaching out to younger potential customers. Let's look at how we used Infegy Starscape , our powerful new social listening tool, to identify three aspects of Dr. Pepper's business growth strategy.

Inserting themselves into the competition

The soda business is fiercely competitive, with Coke and Pepsi distributors battling over who gets distribution rights at large and small venues (everything from sports stadiums to movie theaters to mom-and-pop pizza shops). Dr. Pepper realized it couldn't compete with its behemoth competition. Instead of trying to "win" and replace Coke and Pepsi, its distributors found a way to sneak into their competitors' machines .

We also found this juxtaposition within social data. Figure 3 shows a word cloud of generic Dr. Pepper conversation topics. Without looking for it, we found prominent mentions of the two largest competitors (Coke and Pepsi). More interestingly, mentions of Coke and Pepsi were predominantly positive, meaning that social media users weren't attacking the competition - Dr. Pepper found a way to coexist (and expand) amongst the big players in the space without resorting to negativity. We want to stress just how rare this is. Typically, when we do competitive research (e.g., Apple vs. Samsung phone conversation), we see Apple users being negative about Samsung and Samsung users attacking iPhone users. This more positive juxtaposition suggests how Dr. Pepper positioned itself within the competitive landscape without attacking its main, and much larger competitors.

Interested in learning more? Check out the rest of the insight brief on our website!