I was pleased to see Pepsi’s new ad with Sofia Vergara’s. , and its strategic use of twitter to promote their product: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEFI-_Sg5G0
The add shows Vergara at the beach craving a diet Pepsi and trying to escape a large line at the cabana. In response, she tweets “At the pier… just saw #DavidBeckham!”
As a result, the large line from the cabana--mostly female-- makes a sudden dash off screen while Vergara saunters to the counter for her Pepsi. I thought this ad employed a strategic use of social media very well and clearly endorses twitter and the use of social media as a mainstream activity.
While I found the premise innovative, I also took issue with several other points:
This ad simplifies and glorifies twitter. The mass exodus of people from the cabana after Vergara’s tweets assumes that not only are they all following her but that they are all following the #DavidBeckham hash tag. Is this a realistic assumption? Probably not.
And because this ad is directed towards a largely female, presumably younger audience, who is also likely familiar with Twitter, I wonder if audience took issue with its unrealistic implementation of Twitter.
I am left in the end wondering why Pepsi is so keenly interested in leveraging the power of social media– the ad’s endorsement of Twitter is as strong as its endorsement of Pepsi.
Does it matter that their use of social media is unrealistic? I would guess not as it seems in this case it seems Pepsi is using Twitter to appeal to a younger female audience base by association to social media.
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