A refreshing way to reward us

3rd Mar 2010 A passion and truth by Katharine

Remember way back in the early noughties when Pepsi ran Pepsi Stuff (which Coke went on to rip off with My Coke Rewards)? It was an interactive campaign that focused on rewarding their customers’ investment in the product by allowing them to earn points towards stuff like cameras and iPods. Pepsi got increased sales; we got shiny new gadgets. Everybody won.

That was all well and good in the noughties but Pepsi has stepped up their game for 2010. Their new campaign, The Refresh Project is still rewarding the customer for investing in their brand, but this time it’s an entirely different kind of investment, and an entirely different kind of reward.

The consumer’s investment is their creativity. They have the opportunity to post their ideas of how to make the world a better place on refresheverything.com. Pepsi then rewards whomever’s idea receives the most votes with up to £250,000 to turn the idea into reality. It is up to the individual to promote their ideas through an application that allows the ideas (and a big fat Pepsi logo!) to be posted on Facebook and Twitter, cleverly integrating the initiative with the most popular social media platforms.

This campaign is an excellent example of harmonious cooperation between the brand and the consumer, with both sides feeling like they are getting a good deal. Often brand managers assume we are as interested in their product as they are being payed to be. They expect an influx of consumer creativity, without offering anything substantial in return. But the reality is, if a brand wants to promote itself in our Facebook and Twitter space, it has to be offering something intriguing enough to be invited. It can’t just crash the party.

Pepsi’s Refresh Project manages to get that elusive invite into our ‘private’ social media space, and build their brand on the back of our creativity, because we get the opportunity to bring our ideas to life, and genuinely improve the lives of others. This time, everybody wins, but in a far more substantial and wholesome way.

Substance is something missing from Doritos’ new co-creation campaign, King of Ads. Doritos is offering a reward of £200,000 in its most recent attempt to source a user-generated ad. Actor Noel Clarke and TV presenter Lauren Laverne will be judging the finalists and the winning film will be beamed into space to give aliens an idea of life on earth, naturally. Oh, and you have to include Doritos in your film; so that aliens are aware that all human existence revolves around salty tortilla snacks.

Another example of co-creation that baffles me is the Kingsmill Confessions campaign. Consumers are encourages to post sordid, bread related confessions on the campaign site. Among the juicy confessions on offer, I found this one: "I was once late meeting a friend. I told him I was stuck in traffic when really I was at home making the best sausage sandwich!". I’m betting the friend probably didn’t care she was late. In fact, I’m dubious about the whole ‘friend’ claim altogether. Who goes online to confess about a bread-related crime? There is no incentive and the whole thing feels forced.

Unlike Pepsi’s campaign, where brand and consumer cooperation is mutually beneficial, the Doritos and Kingsmill campaigns sees the brand being crowbarred in, without much thought as to how the consumer’s creativity is being rewarded.

What is refreshing about the Refresh project (sorry, I couldn’t help myself there) is that it is rewarding creativity creatively and giving as good as it gets.

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