Pepsi embracing past and Present
This week at SXSW Pepsi has a very large presence and I asked myself the question. “Why is Pepsi here?” “What is their Objective?” After some contemplation here are my thoughts.
Time Travel (1985) Pepsi Embraces Community
When I was a child growing up in the suburbs of Buffalo New York I played a lot of sports. I played baseball, football, hockey, volleyball ~ you name it I played it! However, the schools that I went to were smaller private schools without much money.I distinctly remember our small school needing a scoreboard for the gym and Pepsi stepping in. Not only did Pepsi step in to my small catholic school, but they stepped into all of the other small schools that I played in. Obviously, as a young child and moving though high school, I had no idea the business agreements that Pepsi made with our local community schools, but they all served Pepsi! Pepsi embraced our community and I presume many other communities. By supporting the people they became part of the CULTURE.
Time Travel (Back to present day) Pepsi Embraces Community
I am a Community Manager for Best Buy Remix. There is a huge conglomerate of community managers, community builders, bloggers, and interactive media makers here at SXSW that are all about community. My belief is that Pepsi is again embracing community. It must be part of their values as a company to not only embrace community, but to become part of the culture of these communities and support them.
Julia Roy – Social media Sweetheart – In Pepsi Podcast Playground
How are they doing it?
Podcasters, bloggers, new media types; All passionate! Pepsi is embracing these people with their Podcast Playground, Consulting new media specialists like Chris Brogan, and partnering with content creators and infrastructure providers like Blog talk Radio.
If your interested in listening to an interview I did with my boss Kevin Matheny and Chris Brogan Click here. I’d be interested to hear what you think. Is Pepsi embracing community? Are they doing a good job inserting and supporting a passionate culture. I think they are, but feel free to throw in your thoughts.
Keith Burtis is a social media and digital marketing professional. If you or your company are looking to REV THE ENGINE on your digital efforts contact Keith today! Specialties include: Blog design/Integration, Custom Facebook Pages, Social, Digital and Interactive Content strategies.
Great observation Keith. I was blown away by the Podcast Area that Pepsi had set up and all the resources that were there at SXSW Interactive for free (multiple tents for podcasting completely with computers, headphones, free drinks, etc.). I made it my homebase for SXSW because I could easily meet people there and we could talk w/o tons of noise or people. Kudos to Chris Perry and the Weber Shandwick team for making it possible for Pepsi to do this.
I invited other members from my CLUB E Network community and for On the Road with iV to meet me there and leverage the small village they build. Keep it up Pepsi.