The other night, this entertaining Pepsi commercial caught my attention. I mostly thought it was a fun concept, maybe a little too similar to the recently run Heineken Share the Good spots in direction and tone, but fun nonetheless. The spot ends with a call to action to 'refresh' our generation, fitting with the optimistic sentiment that seems to fill the air these days despite being in the middle of a recession. I thoroughly enjoyed the spot.
But after seeing the spot, I went to the Refresh Everything website to see what else was connected to this campaign and I can't say I'm sold on it. The site appears to be a New Year Campaign for 2009, focusing on 'Refreshing the World.' Pepsi offers the site as a place with 'opportunities to change the world into a fresher, funnier, much better place.' Change, huh? Jumping on the Obama bandwagon are we? Even if you're game with Pepsi trying to change the world, the campaign seems a bit oddly disjointed, combining hopeful videos to our the president to and online Super Bowl Party all under the same loose 'refresh' campaign.
But the different 'refresh' ideas don't seem to jive together. An online Super Bowl party with Will Arnett idea is interesting on its own, but I really don't see what's refreshing or remotely fresher and funnier about it. The page is still tagged with "Every generation refreshes the world. Now it's your turn." but how exactly are we refreshing the world with an online Super Bowl Party?
The video uploads as letters to the president fit a little better with what appears to be an all-embracing 'positive change' tone to the campaign, but again, it's not so refreshing really. How many other companies are doing similar stunts? According to AdRants IKEA has a "Welcome Obama!" guestbook and Facebook and the New York Times have a Presidential Suggestion site, so the upload your video isn't so original.
I guess I wouldn't mind either tactic on their own, but thrown together into one campaign on one site that feels chaotic and disjointed just isn't grabbing me. The concept really should, I'd like it to inspire me, the very spot that took me to the site inspired me, but once I got there, it just fell flat. Check out the site for yourself and let us know what you think!
No comments:
Post a Comment