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OMD takes Yahoo digital strategy prize for Pepsi On project

Nigel Latta’s recent programme about the evils of sugar certainly got Kiwis talking. And the food industry—and the marketing tactics it employs—came in for plenty of criticism, with sugary drinks given the hardest time. When you see footage of two-year-old children having their teeth removed because their parents put fizzy drink in their sipper bottles, it certainly makes it tough to celebrate marketing campaigns that help sell more of the stuff, but, as Peter Cullinane says, ‘if it’s legal to sell, it’s legal to advertise’, so here’s to OMD New Zealand and Frucor, which have taken out Yahoo New Zealand’s Digital Strategy Award for the Pepsi On project. 

Following changes to the media landscape, including the closure of the local MTV office in 2010 and TVNZ U last year, Pepsi and OMD recognised that New Zealand teens no longer had a media destination of their own, so they established Pepsi On, a customised site within Yahoo Entertainment. It brought together content from ambassadors, Yahoo globally and social media, and, through the Pepsi Party House, it also hosted three parties during the year. 

OMD and Pepsi worked closely with Yahoo New Zealand to create a visual identity for the campaign that mirrored the feel of social media and harnessed a mix of user generated and curated content from teen ambassadors. Tumblr feeds and a Spotify playlist were incorporated into the site and users could also pin content into their own blogs to further amplify the brand through social. 

The campaign exceeded all expectations by doubling Facebook engagement within a month of going live and achieving 22,930 unique user impressions against a target of 8,000, up by 287 percent. 

The judges praised OMD for a strategy that delivered real value to the day-to-day lives of teens, and managing directrix of Mohawk Media and judge Helen Baxter commended the way teen content including photos, social media, music and videos was curated to create an integrated digital platform.  

“OMD’s Pepsi On campaign harnessed curated content from real teens to create authenticity and a sense of ownership. It was successful in increasing social engagement levels and brand equity, as well as creating opportunities for ongoing activity through a new teen channel on Yahoo,” says Baxter. 

At the opposite end of the marketing ledger, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) by Ogilvy & Mather and Neo@Ogilvy was named runner-up for its ‘The Last 55′ campaign, which aimed to draw attention to the perilous state of maui’s dolphin. The campaign saw WWF develop a Facebook app that captured individuals’ user data and converted it into a personalised video, which reached over 43 million people on Twitter and over seven million on Facebook. A total of 100,493 signatures were collected from 216 different countries, surpassing the target of 20,000 by 502 percent. 

Entries for the next Yahoo! Digital Strategy Awards are now open. For more information and to enter, click here

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