There’s a lot of buzz and talk these days about what Pepsi is doing this year with their marketing budget and new online campaign www.refresheverything.com. Just look at how many articles have been written on the subject on AdAge alone since last December:

http://adage.com/abstract.php?article_id=141063
http://adage.com/abstract.php?article_id=141149
http://adage.com/abstract.php?article_id=141239
http://adage.com/adages/post?article_id=141508
http://adage.com/abstract.php?article_id=141973

First of all, kudos to Pepsi for taking some risks and pioneering new ways for big brands to use new ‘social’ media. It takes some real guts to ‘sacrifice’ 25+ years on the Super Bowl and ‘over-commit’ $25MM+ to your Social/Online marketing — that’s some real Challenger behavior!

That said, allow me to throw my ‘two cents’ into the discussion.

There is one aspect of this campaign that I find noticably missing and bothersome — and quite surprising to me especially given this effort is coming from one of history’s most well-known Challenger brands.

It lacks a clear, explicit (and therefore, strong) point-of-view.

It seems that in their quest to open up the brand and put their ‘consumers in control’, Pepsi has allowed themselves to become (or have deliberately tried to be) all things to all people.

Any Challenger who is trying to ‘do more with less’ knows this is the deadliest of all traps to get caught up in.

It starts with their domain name — www.refresheverything.com. Really? Is Pepsi really going to refresh everything?

As you browse their site, you gather that’s not supposed to be the case. They have 5 different categories (and 5 different grant amounts) to choose from, presumably to narrow the scope a bit  — Health, Arts & Culture, Food & Shelter, The Planet and Eduction.

But, does that really narrow it down? I coudn’t help but wonder — What did they leave out? Where’s the ‘Sacrifice’ and ‘Over-commitment’ that is a hallmark of how Challengers operate?

A quick browse through the ideas submitted so far reveals that just about anything under the sun can be submitted — if you’re clever enough to find a way to tie it back to their broad categories. (That said, I did find it particularly interesting I couldn’t find any ideas there that offered a plan to remove  Soft Drinks, Salty Snacks and other sugary/fatty junk foods from our schools…)

Another example of how this campaign lacks a strong/unique POV comes in their advertising for the effort. Ads on TV and the internet ask consumers ‘What do YOU care most about?” You can view their ads here:

Pepsi Refresh – What do you Care About?

The Pepsi Refresh Project

The issue with this is that it doesn’t clearly or explicitly project to the world what Pepsi cares most about. Instead, it leaves us wondering what matters most to Pepsi — what do THEY believe in or care about?

The brand isn’t operating like a lighthouse — projecting a strong belief and inviting consumers to navigate by the brand. Instead, it’s operating like a ‘Mirror,’ simply reflecting back to the world what their consumers think and believe. ‘Mirror, mirror on the wall…’

It’s implied in the tagline and V/O that they care about ‘refreshing’ the world (one soda at a time) – but the word ‘refreshing’ is one of those FAT words I wrote about previously (http://www.eatbigfish.com/blog/2010/03/fat-or-focused ), especially in the beverage industry.

But just what exactly do they mean by ‘refreshing’ and more importantly, HOW does Pepsi want to refresh the world?  And ‘one soda at a time’ — isn’t that a bit self-serving?

Perhaps they don’t know, or it’s just not clear to them either.

Unfortunately, in the absence of the answer, it seems as though they’ve chosen to hand the brand’s identity over to the consumer to come up with an answer.

Or in classic Pepsi fashion, to celebrities like Ashton Kutcher. Demi Moore. Kevin Bacon — and Will.i.am, who sings the song in the background that talks about ‘one people’ and ‘uniting’ everyone in our ‘circle of ideas’ and ‘getting amnesia’ to ‘forget’ the evil in the world.

So perhaps that’s it — Pepsi believes in Unity, ‘Pangea’ and the notion that we are all connected– separated by ’6 degrees of Kevin Bacon’ – and in a sense ‘one and the same.’

We’ll never really know, and that’s the problem I have with it.

Unless, one day, they decide to just come right out and project it loud and clear, insistently and consistently, in everything they do, for all the world to know (rather than guess).

If they did, that would be a ‘refreshing’ POV.