The Homa Files

TakeAway: Coke and Pepsi’s rivalry is the stuff of legend in the ad business.

Coke Zero and Pepsi Max are chasing a burgeoning market of men who don’t want “diet” soda. 

Coke Zero launched five years ago and commands a healthy lead in sales. Pepsi, however, launched a new positioning over the summer. 

Below is a comparison of how each managed its media programs.

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Excerpted from AdAge, “Coke Zero vs. Pepsi Max: Which Media Plan Had More Fizz?” By Antony Young, November 3, 2010

1.  Creative executions

Coke Zero’s ‘Four S’ Strategy: Coke Zero centered its brand media strategy on four key pillars: sports, social media, schools and Spanish language media. To build brand discussion, Coke Zero also implemented several clever social media and college programs. Lastly, Coke Zero shifted just under a fifth of its budget into Hispanic media in 2010.

Pepsi Max: Zero Calories, Maximum Taste: Pepsi Max went with a more multimedia plan across television, print and online display to launch its new positioning, “Zero Calories, Maximum Taste.” The new creative dropped diet from its messaging and went after Coke Zero with a comparative ad.

2.  Paid media strategy

Coke Zero’s paid media plan this year so far has been essentially 99% broadcast. It also focused almost solely on sports programming.  It also made a very significant shift in targeting among the Hispanic market by placing 18% of its total budget on Univision. Last year it did not buy any Spanish Language television

Pepsi Max employed a broader range of media. It put 72% of its media plan into broadcast television, contrasting Coke Zero’s 51% in broadcast, 28% in cable and 21% in spot. Pepsi Max’s sports buy included auto racing, but its purchase spanned a wider variety of programming to deliver higher reach. Its top two programming genres were reality and comedy.  In print, Pepsi Max ran a series of advertorials in Maxim.

3.  Owned media strategy

Both brands’ owned media strategy smartly leveraged content on Facebook.

4.  Earned media strategy

Coke Zero posted a clever video and developed an excellent college advocate program dubbed Coke Zero Agent. Essentially a recruitment program at major colleges around the country, students pitched to be a Coke Zero Agent, a role that involved promoting the brand in their colleges through marketing and social programs on campus.

The Super Bowl is still some three months away, but Pepsi Max kicked off early buzz for its planned promotion with Doritos. It launched the promotion at an event in Los Angeles with Betty White, the breakout star of the 2010 Super Bowl commercials with her spot for Snickers.

Summary

While Coke Zero had the benefit of a bigger budget, it made clear choices about where it wanted to play in what looked like a more deliberate and distinct strategy. It made a clear decision with its television plan to single-mindedly chase the young male audience through sports programming events. Its substantial investment in Hispanic media gave the brand one edge over Pepsi Max. It also intelligently employed branded content online.

Pepsi Max‘s plan had a more traditional media flavor to it, delivering strong audiences for the advertising and smartly leveraged Doritos’ early buzz for the forthcoming Super Bowl.

Edit by AMW

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Full Article:
http://adage.com/mediaworks/article?article_id=146884

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This entry was posted on November 18, 2010 at 6:15 am and is filed under Beverages - Soft Drinks, Mktg - Positioning. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.