Where is the rulebook of branding? Ask Pepsi they threw it away!

Though thumb rules of branding require consistency and recognition at point of sale, Pepsi had engaged in April in a huge campaign regarding new designs of the entire Pepsi packs: over 35 changes over the next year.

Why? They say to relate with the young generation, who seeks “discovery, connectedness, personalization and multiculturalism”. As its passions regard cars, music and fashion, the designs will mold onto them, as a key design has been assign to each Pepsi sort: Pepsi max has the “breakdncer”, Pepsi regular has “global festivals” and the “ chandelier” as the chandelier earrings, represents Diet Pepsi, targeting young feminine consumers.

In US, there is a contest called “Design our Pepsi”, a deeper step took by the company, who encourages consumers to submit their designs and evaluate the work of others, by a Pepsi drawn criteria: originality, creativity and strength of the branding relating.

There will be a 10,000$ prize for the winner, who’s design will apear on 500 ml cans.

The step taken by Pepsi will certainly rise debates about this unusual approach and opinions didn’t take long to emerge. According to the founder of the design agency Smith and Milton, Howard Milton, „There should be another way for Pepsi to engage with young people, because, fundamentally, it... is talking to this younger generation on a superficial visual platform, but not really communicating with them...”.

Though not date confirmed by Pepsi, a copycat innitiative is intended in UK.
In the UK, bottles of Pepsi, Pepsi Max and Diet Pepsi, will have new designs, but there could be a problem there. “… if Pepsi had opted for the full complement of designs on these, millions of cans-worth of production would have been lost”, says Tim Lynch, artwork manager for Britvic Soft Drinks, which holds Pepsi’s UK distribution licence.,

But he also cames with a solution: using of no more ink than the existing four-colour, standard packaging in the printing process. ‘We’ve had to come up with pragmatic solutions, otherwise there would have been screams from production asking how we were going to do this... It’s their job to chop complexity off projects and achieve speed and efficiency.”
The low levels of costs represent a major concern to all corporations. But costs can be low says Sarah Palmer, founder and principal of Big Green Door, which has worked with Pepsi, Masterfoods and Unilever. ‘There is a relatively low cost when you are changing the packs at a surface-design level, as you don’t have to have a factory reset, which you would if you were changing the actual structure of the packs’.