08 January 2010
Bravo Pepsi, Bravo
Have you visited Pepsi's new micro-site for their Pepsi Refresh Project? Back in late December, Pepsi announced they would not be advertising during the Super Bowl this year. Instead, they would take the $20 million, normally spent on advertising during the Super Bowl, and invest it towards social media in the form of their Refresh Project campaign.
The Refresh Project is a community investment campaign for people and organizations to submit ideas on how they would make a positive impact in their community. Each month up to 1,000 ideas are submitted into six categories (health, arts & culture, food and shelter, the planet, neighborhoods, and education). Up to 32 Pepsi Refresh Grants are awarded based on a public voting system, and grants can vary in size from $5k, $25k, $50k, and $250k.
Sound familiar?
You may remember Change.org hosting a similar campaign in 2008, during the presidential race. Now Change.org has evolved into a fantastic model for social voting and collaboration (see also: digg).
Bravo Pepsi, Bravo
The potential outcome for this campaign is enormous! On the surface, they are supporting on-the-ground social entrepreneurs, leading amazing projects around a variety of different issues, with unmeasurable ripple effects. Below the surface, they are leading the way large brands interact with civilization, beyond their products or services and are becoming something more.
I'd be amiss if I didn't recognize that Pepsi, a soda, is less then stellar for human health and contributes to vast amounts of pollution and waste throughout its life cycle. Pepsi, a subsidiary of Pepsico, at least recognizes this and makes it pretty clear what they are doing to mitigate the damage they are causing and address top line issues (learn more on PepsiCo).
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