Comments on: Pepsi’s viral failure

By: Adam Rozenhart

Adam Rozenhart — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 18:22:50 +0000

I don’t know that hiring a pro would have helped. Powerful, effective and honest viral is incredibly hard to do, and in my opinion, it’s rarely a willful act. What one person thinks will be viral, then rest of the planet may not.

I think it’s good for marketers and communicators to dabble in this stuff, but they have to tread with caution. One false move can put people off your brand for a long time.

By: Melanie Nathan

Melanie Nathan — Wed, 24 Feb 2010 16:37:27 +0000

Great write-up Adam. Being a person who earns part of their living creating targeted web content for specific purposes, I can attest to how hard it is to even come up with ideas that will be well received and hence get you to your goals. I, for one, applaud Pepsi’s efforts and their willingness to interact with their market. Maybe they should have hired a professional though

By: Liam

Liam — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 19:56:35 +0000

I thoroughly enjoyed that. Great post!

Viral marketing is kind of the the newest model in a long line of vehicles that advertisers try to ride. I once saw a film where someone documented an ad agency’s attempts to harness, capture or otherwise “get” what “cool” is. In an effort to communicate in their target market’s language, it seems companies will always look for a new edge, which happens to be viral marketing right now.

Props to them if they can pull it off well. I would imagine it’s tough to balance the feelings of your target market and the need to justify your actions to shareholders/decision-makers.

By: Adam Rozenhart

Adam Rozenhart — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 22:12:09 +0000

Thanks Adam.

What I’m really trying to say is the notion that Canadians always punctuate their sentences with the word “eh” is as nourishing to the debate as saying that all Americans are a bunch of gun-crazy hicks, or that all French people are rude surrender-monkeys, or that the Spaniards… Hey, wait a minute. What IS the deal with Spaniards?

By: Adam Snider

Adam Snider — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 22:09:17 +0000

“Eh” is totally a real thing, but it’s pretty much only from a certain portion of Ontario (as are most of the cliche Canadian slang terms and pronunciations). I point that out mostly for the sake of being obnoxious.

Other than that, I’d say that you’re pretty much spot on with your assessment of the whole “Cheer Nation” flop.

By: Adam Rozenhart

Adam Rozenhart — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 22:06:18 +0000

Yes, it was about submissions… But the sentiment remains the same, if you ask me: Pepsi wanted to virally promote some chant (fan submitted in this case) and it failed utterly.

By: jeanshorts

jeanshorts — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 22:03:23 +0000

Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t the chant selected from fan submissions and ohmygod is that a bunch of pictures of sex toys on the bottom right?

But, umm, oh yeah. Didn’t people send in their chants, Pepsi chose 3, and then people supposedly voted for that god awful chant? Or maybe they already had the chant created and they tried to use this fan voting thing as a way to deflect any heat in case it went topsy turvey like it did.

By: Adam Rozenhart

Adam Rozenhart — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 17:16:18 +0000

To be honest, I don’t really consider Thunder Bay to be part of Canada.

By: ryan

ryan — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 16:16:19 +0000

if you don’t think the eh thing is true maybe you need to start hanging out with more people from thunder bay.

every conversation i’ve ever had with my friend from thunder bay leads me to believe every single discussion between two residents of that city sounds like like this: “how bout that goal? beauty eh?” “oh ya fer sher total beauty.”