So apparently, all it takes to get me blogging is for someone to quote me in a decent blog post. Lars did that, and I felt I needed to give my two cents.
Before I go on, let me disclose. I happen to know Mads, who did a great deal of work on www.pepsimax.dk, so in that respect I’m biased. When that is said, I wouldn’t say or write anything I don’t believe, regardless of who I know.
A bit of background (I’ll keep it brief):
- Pepsi launch www.pepsimax.dk, A site that, for the main part, displays content from Youtube, Flickr and Twitter in which Pepsi is mentioned
- Users who don’t like the idea unleash a shitstorm of spiteful tweets (because they can. It’s part of the game, I guess. I seem to remember the same thing happening to Skittles a while back) against the site, but as it happens with such things, it quickly settles at a reasonable level
- ‘Experts’ (in this case consumer law types and journos) try to conjure up some sort of problem with Pepsi using other people’s tweets (not their pics or vids, though. Just the tweets).
It baffles me. Could we all just take a freaking chill pill and start enjoying the endless possibilities of social media (in whichever form we like) instead of going off on paranoid rants about privacy everytime someone comes up with an idea?
And could we PLEASE be less influenced by whether or not we like the product and look at the solution in itself? I mean, if this had been UNICEF or Barack Obama or even Apple, integrating social media the way Pepsi did, we’d be cheering, joyful to be included in their presence online.
Seriously, if you wanna keep everything to yourself, protect your tweets, it’s easy! And if you don’t wanna advertise for Pepsi, don’t write flattering tweets about the product with the word Pepsi in them!
Sorry, this was too brief and not structured enough, but I just needed to let out a bit of steam.
7 Comments
I don’t applaud neither 2. nor 3., but I do however wonder about the relevance of the site? Is it a “one time marketing gimmick” or is it of actual value to the customer, and in that case how? Would any costumer ever go to pepsi’s site in order to see what others say about pepsi – and why would somebody do that? Why should a customer flip through the endless stream of pepsi tweets? I just don’t see the value at all…
Relevance? hmmm… Yeah I would really like to invite Mads to give his two cents on that. I’ll invite him to join.
I guess I agree with you in that it looks like a one time gimmick, but on the other hand, if you think of it as an add-on to a boring old product website, maybe you don’t exactly need people to come back to see what others are saying, maybe you would just add context to your products?
And maybe – just maybe – the gimmick is worth it!
I know it’s taboo, but maybe the campaign aspect and fleeting hype over social media integration actually is a goal in it self? I’m not saying that you couldn’t interact more efficiently with your customer base, but perhaps that is not the goal of the campaign?
Yes I guess the gimmick’s woth it. It sounds reasonable with the hype being the goal in itself. Anyways no matter what goal I think that’ll be the result.
Uh, so many things I want to add… let me start by stating that these opinions are my own, and definitely not PepsiCo’s og Royal Unibrew’s (for whom I did concept and flash work on http://www.pepsimax.dk).
First of all, it’s not a “gimmick” of some sorts. We really did some thinking relating to how we could integrate social media on the new pepsimax.dk and get the brand to “eye-level” if you will. Furthermore, who visits pepsimax.dk anyway in their free will? No Pepsi-produced content we could think of would persuade people to visit the site voluntarily.
So we thought: why not let people drive the traffic themselves? And let people have their say while they’re at it? That’s one of the reasons we integrated Facebook Connect on the site, to let the traffic come from below with true and honest content and not try to come up with some sugarcoated flypaper-scheme ourselves. Give me a user’s opinion about a brand anytime instead of a PR-coated message.
It’s a big, bold step for a company like Pepsi to take, so kudos to them – really. Totally uncensored, unfiltered content (well, filtered with “pepsi” keywords, but you know what I mean). Let’s see Danske Bank or even Coke do something like that.
On our side of things, we’re still trying to figure out how to use the new social media technologies to people’s (and obviously Pepsi’s) benefits. This is only version 1.0. We’d definitely like to hear your opinions on how we could integrate better. I’ve seen a lot of people write that the site is “cheap” and has no benefit – I certainly don’t agree with that. And I’d like to hear from the critics how they think social media should (or should not) be used commercially, instead of just sounding the bullhorn and shouting about how lame and unrelevant the site is (did I just repeat myself there? I really want to hear your opinion!
).
Hey Mads, you’re coining the actual problem – why would any user engage in or even visit Pepsi’s site? It’s a very tough one, and I actually don’t think your idea is lame..I just think the form is a bit too much – it’s difficult to make any sense of it – it too much in flux. I would leave out the twitter integration for sure.
How ever to return to the real problem – why should pepsi have a communication website at all? Why not only make campaigns where the users are at (I know it’s easy to say facebook – so I will). I know It’ll be difficult measuring such a campaign the same way you can measure the performance of your site, but that doesn’t justify a site.
I think the word ‘gimmick’ might be wrong here, and the more I think of it the more I regret having used it, cause it makes the project sound shady, which I am certain that it is not.
I also think that we are going to be seeing a LOT of social media integration which is not dialogue based. I think the evangalists in the business (and no, I don’t mean you, Jane) are going to object vehemently to this, but after a while, when the dust settles, it will find an appropriate level.
But I think what people object to is the lack of dialogue. The fact that Pepsi themselves aren’t present. You bring up the comparison with Danske Bank, and while their ‘meningssite’ might be filtered (I actually don’t think it is), they at least respond to some of the criticism posted by their users. Now before you say anything, I agree. It’s hard to respond to some of the ignorant ‘Pepsi sucks’ tweets, but a next step might be actual presence by the company.
I do think it was a bold move not to filter, or let me rephrase that, I think it would be a horrible move to filter, and it would indeed make the site feel gimmicky.
And who is to say that the integration you’ve got going now can’t be an integral part in campaigns to come? I can absolutely see you activating the crowd for, say, competitions or product development or what not, using the existing set-up.
Also, there might actually be pretty dedicated Pepsi-fans out there (I remember some of my peers religiously collecting Coke-gear in my younger days), and to them, coming back for the latest tweets and – especially – videos and pictures, does represent real value.
In large I agree, Asbjørn. However I don’t really care about the dialogue aspect. I object to the fetishizing of the media. I may be a bit harsh, but to me it seems like the form is more important than the content. It happens all the time. Here is another example: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=8613722&id=232293915300&ref=mf – this one even more so than the one we are discussing. I’m not particularly after this project, but in general it’s about time we stop cheering the novelty of media.