Revitalizing Brands: Pepsi's Colachup and LV's Pharrell Williams Spectacle

Just when you thought you’d seen it all…

Colachup enters the scene.

And no, it’s not something we’ve just made up. Colachup is a part of Pepsi’s huge #BetterWithPepsi campaign and one of their attempts to reinvent their brand yet again and position it differently. But let’s start from the beginning.

With 4th July right at our doors and the key sales occasion for packaged food and beverages, Pepsi is moving towards becoming the preferred soft drink pairing with hot dogs.

Why, you might ask? According to research, about 150 million hot dogs are eaten on this very holiday all over the States. Quite a market to take part in, we’d agree.

All of this is a new take on their #BetterWithPepsi campaign, during which they’ve already taken a turn at attacking the pizza, as well as the hamburger market (which is still predominantly ruled by Coca-Cola and their contracts with most of the US fast food chains).?

But this time, Pepsi is going all in. They’ve paired up with the Culinary Institute of America Consulting and thought of a new topping - Pepsi Colachup - which is a mixture of cola and ketchup, “promising to wed the sweet, citrus notes of Pepsi with the tanginess of ketchup”. To add an influencer marketing note, they’ve teamed up with Joey Chestnut , a crowned champion of Nathan’s Famous International Hot Dog Eating Contest.

Moreover, they’ll have exclusive in-stadium sampling at Chase Field, Yankee Stadium, Target Field, and Comerica Park on July 4.?

The effect of it all?

If we look at the report in our media monitoring tool Determ, they can be pretty satisfied for now.

The word cloud shows that their messaging is on point since the most important parts of the campaigns are talked about immensely.?

And if we’d like to know if the wider audience likes the campaign, the answer is pretty obvious:

Still, we wanted to check just how strong and influential the campaign was in comparison to the entire brand. So we’ve taken a look at the report based on more than 80,000 mentions of Pepsi in general within the past month. One of the conclusions pulled out by our AI assistant Synthia was this one:?

The conclusion?

Pepsi is nailing it for now. They still have approximately a week to bring the whole campaign to its climax. Who knows. Maybe we’re looking at the future best-drink-that-goes-with-a-hot-dog kind of brand.

Pepsi wasn’t the only brand looking to reinvent their image recently.

A paradigm shift in LV

On the evening of June 20th, against the backdrop of the Seine River in Paris, Pharrell Williams unveiled his creative vision for Louis Vuitton.?

TLDR; here’s how Determ’s AI PR Assistant summarized the whole show for us.

This highly anticipated event marked a historic moment in the fashion world, and the renowned music producer exceeded expectations with a show brimming with electrifying energy and pure bliss.

In a surprising turn of events back in February, Williams was appointed as the creative director of Louis Vuitton menswear, defying industry expectations that favored British designers Grace Wales Bonner and Martine Rose for the role.?

The show, however, unveiled the underlying reasons behind Williams' selection. It transcended the boundaries of a conventional fashion show, morphing into a grand display of celebrity talent, a captivating performance, and an exuberant celebration, all while incorporating stunning garments as an additional highlight.

In the star-studded front row for Williams’s debut was Beyoncé, Jay-Z, Rihanna, A$AP Rocky, Zendaya, Naomi Campbell, Lenny Kravitz, Megan Thee Stallion, Maluma, Anitta, LeBron James, Lewis Hamilton, and Takashi Murakami, among others.

And this hit the mark perfectly. Our AI assistant Synthia recognized this as the most valuable asset for adding credibility and glamour to the event. See what she recommended:

A true artist, Williams has continuously made it his mission to inspire this generation and those after him through his impact on music and fashion, while never forgetting where he has come from.?

“When you come from a culture that has been purposefully blocked and set in disadvantaged situations, you can’t imagine what’s even possible. But there’s this narrative that’s changing. (...) When I say the sun is shining on me—and it’s shining on all of us…listen, this is a French house, but they went right back to America and found another Black man, and gave me the keys.”

Luckily for Pharrell, the community he’s been cultivating in fashion and in music since the beginning—back when he was introducing the world to streetwear, and introducing a new sound to hip-hop—they’re all still with him. That history brought him to the place he is now, and represents his unique ability to upend the culture.

“I've grown with it,” he says. “We all grew together. We're different. We're in a different place. The world has shifted, clearly.”

At midnight, as the crowd exited the Pont Neuf and flooded the streets of Paris, that shift was felt acutely. This is the beginning for Pharrell and LV, but it also feels like the beginning of a new era, and fitting for it to start on a note of joy.

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*All metric screenshots are taken directly from Determ, a media monitoring tool.