PURCHASE, N.Y. -- PepsiCo Inc., which rarely changes the packaging of its flagship cola, now is launching a series of new label designs to debut every three or four weeksa marketing shift that the company hopes will attract the attention of increasingly fickle, restless and distracted young consumers, reported The Wall Street Journal.
Pepsi-Cola cans will begin appearing on U.S. store shelves immediately with the first of the new designs, which include depictions of DJs, snowboards, emoticons and other images. New designs will debut in international [image-nocss] markets later this year.
A total of 35 new designs are coming this year, with more in the works for 2008, said the report. They will be stamped on 20-oz. and two-liter soda bottles and fountain-drink cups as well as cans.
Pepsi executives said the changes reflect a big shift in strategy. Until now, the soda can was viewed mostly as a humdrum container that nevertheless wasn't to be tinkered with except in rare and fleeting circumstances. Coca-Cola Co., for instance, stamps Santa Claus and polar bears on cans around Christmas, and Pepsi has created football-themed cans for the Super Bowl in recent years. Pepsi said it has permanently changed its label or logo only 10 times since the drink was invented in 1898, the report said. Its most recent major design change involved switching the color of the Pepsi can to blue from white in 1998.
The new graphics are part of a broader new thematic campaign for Pepsi-Cola that emphasizes the brand's "fun, optimistic, and youthful spirit," Pepsi said. That push will also include an ad campaign developed by Omnicom Group's BBDO, to launch in February, Cie Nicholson, chief marketing officer for Purchase, N.Y.-based Pepsi-Cola's North American business, told the Journal.
Pepsi hopes the fast-changing cans and labels create buzz, much as the addition of U.S. state emblems has done for quarters.
To build on the concept of a can as a marketing tool, the first new can design, dubbed "Your Pepsi," touts a contest to design a Pepsi billboard, which will be displayed in Times Square in New York in April. Participants can contribute to an evolving virtual billboard canvas on the web. At the end of the contest, the company will select one for Times Square.
The can-design changes are the latest sign of how established consumer companies are wrestling to connect with the short attention spans of teens and young adults, according to the report.
Nicholson said the soda can is "one of our most valuable assets." Frequent design changes will help the company better keep up with changing tastes, she added. The cans will retain some similar design elements: all are still blue and have the familiar Pepsi globe logo.
By changing designs so frequently, Pepsi runs the risk of confusing or alienating consumers who rely on familiar visual cues to find their favorite brands among a changing sea of products, some marketing experts told the newspaper. And some young consumers could dismiss the cans as little more than clatter from a stodgy company, the report said.
The Pepsi plan, said the report, resembles a tactic already used by smaller beverage marketers such as Jones Soda Co., Seattle, which changes the labels on its quirky premium drinks often, even inviting consumers to submit their own photos for consideration as labels.
Coca-Cola, which historically has guarded its flagship brand's look more closely from major change, has no similar plans, according to the Journal. But the company does plan to update the look of its Coca-Cola Classic can this year with some slight tweaks, Katie Bayne, senior vice president of the Coca-Cola trademark for the Atlanta company's North American business, told the paper.
Given the waning cola sales, Pepsi's changes may be worth the risk, said Tom Pirko, president of BevMark LLC, a food and beverage industry consulting company. "Consumers are bored, bored, bored," told the paper. "We have to find some new way to get their attention and build bridges to new forms of loyalty."
Separately, Dallas-based Cadbury Schweppes Americas Beverages (CSAB) said it will introduce new labeling on regular 7UP to provide more information to consumers about the natural ingredients in 7UP.
CSAB introduced the reformulated 7UP in spring 2006. The product was developed following Food & Drug Administration (FDA) written policy on natural products and ingredients.
The company said that since many consumers are interested in a wide variety of natural products and ingredients, but since there are many, varied opinions on labeling of all-natural products, the new label will go beyond applicable regulations and move from saying "100% Natural" to specifically highlighting those 7UP natural ingredients, for which it said there is no debate. 7UP contains no added colors, no artificial preservatives and no caffeine.
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