158 The Best Digital Marketing Campaigns in the World
Target audience
The focus of this campaign was on Turkish housewives, typically the principal
shoppers in the household.Action
Previous Pepsi promotions with a younger target audience had proved that
the chance of winning free mobile ‘airtime’ on promotional packs could be a
very successful strategy. For this campaign the team decided to offer 10
FAUs as an ‘instant win’ for purchasing Pepsi’s family-size bottles. In addition
to the free calls on offer via promotional packs, cash prizes were offered – a
particularly alluring incentive given the economic backdrop against which the
campaign would play out.To really hit the mark though, the campaign would need endorsement from an
opinion leader – someone who could convince Turkish housewives of the
merits of the campaign, and show them how the ‘text-to-win’ mobile promo-
tion model worked. The campaign needed to be attractive, compelling and
incredibly easy if housewives were going to participate in it. Research sug-
gested the most trustworthy celebrity in Turkey was Seda Sayan, widely
regarded as Turkey’s Oprah Winfrey. She was selected by the Pepsi team as
the spokesperson for the campaign. On TV ads and her morning shows, she
demonstrated how to SMS and participate in the Pepsi promotion every day.But despite the celebrity endorsement and TV promotion, the campaign still
needed to genuinely motivate housewives to engage and, crucially, to share
the message with other people. And that’s where the innovative ‘promo tone’
comes into play. The ‘promo tone’ is a promotional ringback tone (RBT) that
instantly credits the ‘owner’ with free airtime when another person calls them
and listens to the message. The ‘Pepsi Makes Your Day’ campaign was the
first time this kind of promotion had been used in Turkey.