Pepsi-Lipton Brisk - Case Analysis Report

1. Key Issues/Problems
Brisk was popular in the 90’s, but had become stagnant and the low popularity was further
compounded with the economic recession. In 2009, sales of Brisk began to rise due to the
increased attraction of consumers to the ready-to-drink (RTD) tea category, which was driven by
the new trend of health and wellness. Although Brisk experienced this increase, they were still at
third position behind Arizona and Lipton. In late 2010, brand building director for Lipton Brisk,
Marisol Tamaro and PepsiCo. Vice president, Mary Barnard, had to decide how they would
reintroduce the Brisk brand to consumers. Although Lipton is positioned as a health product, they
wanted to position Brisk as a product with personality, or an attitude-based product.
As of 2010, television advertising was the major media used by Brisk and a number of its
competitors (Exhibit 4) to capture significant market share (Exhibit 1). However, an even more
important and useful metric would be to measure actual engagement with Brisk’s social media
(comments, likes and sharing, for example). Brisk had fallen behind in social media presence
compared to its competitors – Arizona, Snapple and SoBe (Exhibit 5). Their marketing goals were
to reintroduce the Brisk brand, convince Arizona drinkers to switch to Brisk, and generate positive
word of mouth by building their fan base (on Facebook and YouTube).
Brisk had not done much consumer-oriented marketing during the time it was stagnant, rather
they were more focused on trade agreements, product development and introduction of new
packaging. However, because sales were beginning to rise and the tea industry was growing,
PepsiCo. wanted to invest more heavily in Brisk. Not only that, but neither PepsiCo. nor its rival
Coca-Cola had the top market share in this sector, making it an even more appealing investment.
Barnard and Tamaro decided to target male millennials and Hispanics based on their preference
for heathy RTD drinks. The brand’s natural personality was male, so it made sense for them to go
for this target. The problem, though, was that because they had not done any recent consumer-
orientated marketing, people did not know what the brand stood for, and many even had
negative perceptions about the brand. When asked what they thought of Brisk, respondents used
words like “sweet” and “refreshing”, but they also said it was “fake” and “sugary” (Exhibit 6). So
accurate advertising was needed to reinstate the brand image amongst the consumers.
Retailers were unwilling to give up more shelf space for the new and unproved products and
wanted promotional support for these products as a guarantee that the purchased products
would be sold off quickly. After a failed social media campaign in 2010 (Pepsi Refresh Project)
that cost PepsiCo $20 million, Barnard and Tamaro decided to begin by showing a Super Bowl
commercial followed by an integrated campaign that would extend beyond the Super Bowl and
have a longer lasting impact on consumers. However, a tight timeline and a restricted budget
($12 million in 2011; Table B; Exhibit 7) only allowed them to choose one of the following two
options to continue the campaign: television advertising or a viral social media advertising
campaign. Both options have advantages and disadvantages, and because they could only choose
one, they had to consider which one would provide them with the best return.
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 PepsiCo hired Mekanism to re-launch Brisk Iced Tea with a focus on redefining an attitude-based
image for the brand since Mekanism was the one-stop shop for creative ideas, production,
promotion and distribution.

2. Discussion of Alternative Solutions

a. Market Segmentation:
i. Male Millennials and Hispanics as tea drinkers who were discovering the RTD tea and
wanted to have caffeine without compromising for the ice-cold flavor richness of soda. Lipton
Brisk Iced tea with six different flavors was very popular amongst the Generation Y (those
born between 1980 and 1990). Mekanism’s experience with reaching millennial audiences
could be exploited by PepsiCo in coming up with an effective campaign to target the most
likely potential users of Brisk. The idea of targeting millennials using a viral advertising
syndication approach (Exhibit 12) could be utilized successfully. The learning from a series of
focus groups conducted by Mekanism, revealed that that young males responded to three
main features – 1) entertainment involving their favorite celebrities who had “cultural
relevance”, 2) humor and 3) interactivity or social media involvement. These 3 criteria
indicated Millennial’s habit of seeking outlets for creativity. Their habits of sharing their
creative arts or sharing their favorite music or videos on social networking sites could be used
positively by Mekanism to develop creative advertising to engage this user group. In 2010,
cable television and social networking sites were most consumed media by millennials
(Exhibit 13 for a profile of typical Brisk drinker; Exhibit 14 for the characteristics of
Millennials), although the major source (65%) was television.
Males: Brisk also targeted males because they felt that doing so, females would join in while
the company felt that just targeting females would exclude males.
b. Product Placement options:
i. Television advertising: TV advertising is a standard approach that is very familiar to PepsiCo,
as the company had been using primetime TV advertising for many of its snack and beverage
products. With its high economic impact, TV has been traditionally viewed as the media that
provides advertisers with a huge captive audience. However, many people multitask while
watching television. In fact, 86% of mobile internet users watch TV while on their phones.
Also, 60% of laptop users watch TV while browsing online. Therefore, this audience is highly
distracted while consuming content from TV and are likely not paying attention to the
advertisements shown. This is assuming, though, that they do not skip the advertisements: a
trend that is increasing exponentially. Consumers are becoming very savvy at skipping ads, in
which case they are not at all likely to get the advertising message. Even the target group of
millennials, had 65% that followed Television.
Assuming consumers do actually receive the advertising message, this could be a promising
medium because consumers may create conversations online and via text about the content
they see on TV because they are already simultaneously on their phones and laptops. The
content would of course have to be engaging enough to stimulate conversation. Also,
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 millennials still get most of their news from television, as cable TV is one of their most
commonly consumed media, which is a promising aspect of television for advertisers.
Another benefit of television advertising is that it gives a company credibility with retailers
who might be hesitant to stock a new or unproven product because it shows that they are
interested in the end-consumer purchasing the product too, not just in the retailer.
ii. Social Medial / Viral Campaign: The other option Barnard and Tamaro can use is to create a
viral campaign online. This media, like TV, also has many advantages and drawbacks. First of
all, many more people are streaming their videos online and are actually watching more of
the online video ads. Because of this, it is believed that viral campaigns lead to much higher
quality impressions. Consumers are engaged with the video content they see online and are
more likely to be engaged with the ads as well (Exhibit 8 Various media, Exhibit 9 for actions
taken in response to video ads). However, it is possible that ads on YouTube, for example, are
only so highly viewed because users do not have the option to skip the ad (at least not at
first). Not only is it of higher quality, but also higher quantity, as consumers are spending
more and more time online. Plus, online advertisements are generally less intrusive to users,
as many times they are placed with similar content or are searchable content themselves.
Therefore, Brisk could end up with a larger, and generally more targeted, audience if they go
with this method.
Viral campaigns are not only dependent on engaging content, but also require effective
distribution methods. The strategy of Syndicating videos online could be successfully used by
Mekanism. Syndication is a process of “seeding” a campaign’s content to a variety of blogs
and other sites that could then post it for other users to see. Mekanism could identify and
utilize online influencers, such as celebrities, popular bloggers, YouTube directors and
Facebook and Twitter users (Exhibit 11) after posting the advertise onto social media. Some
of these influencers could be used as primary “brand ambassadors” while the others could be
reached out via email at a later stage. After engaging with the influencers, the Mekanism
specialists could then explain the campaign to the influencers. These influencers could be
given perks such as exclusive information and content from the campaign to share with their
followers or be offered a financial compensation ($5K -$20K) for their cooperation - a process
termed as “value exchange”. After distributing the content via such social media influencers,
Mekanism could evaluate the metrics of success (such as number of impressions and people
reached, time of engagement with the branded content, comments and shares on sites like
Facebook and Twitter and brand sentiment) and use them to optimize each influencer’s role
in the advertising campaign.
Viral campaign can help generate word of mouth, which is a powerful tool in advertising to
millennials, and can be a huge factor in making the Brisk brand appear more genuine. Also,
social media is becoming more of a requirement than an option. In 2010, Brisk’s competitors,
such as Arizona and Snapple, were already on social media with a strong presence. Although
PepsiCo. was familiar with social media campaigns, as it had done the Pepsi Refresh Project
in the past, the Brisk brand was not strong on social media. Going with a viral campaign
would give them an edge in the competition, should they be successful in creating one.
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 Mekanism, had a proven track record for making video content go viral without the
assistance of offline or online paid media. They can first ensure that the content has its own
value, independent of the product. Then they can use stories to engage users emotionally
and start a conversation. The case made an interesting point that people want to be
“discoverers and curators” because for people online “you are what you share.” Therefore,
the content is one of the most important factors in determining whether a social campaign
will go viral or not. To truly engage an audience through this media, ads must be unique,
must create a sort of affinity and relation with the viewers, and are required to be a certain
length, in order to capture their attention throughout the entire ad and motivate them to
share it. As mentioned before, the other most important factor is promotion of the content.
Mekanism provided Brisk with the estimation of 12.5 million online impressions, provided
they use 25 influencers.
c. Revive older marketing strategies: Mekanism could revive some of the older advertising
campaign strategies successfully used by Brisk prior to decline in their popularity. The potential
effectiveness of the four concepts, could be measured be considering the following categorical
data for the metrics based on the responses given from the focus group:
1. Convey the overall theme of “Brisk revives your creative mojo”
2. Entertainment featuring celebrities
3. Humor
4. Interactivity

 “That’s Brisk Baby” Rebirth by making video ads that showcased the Claymation puppet
versions of popular celebrities and fictional characters such as Bruce Willis, Bruce Lee and
Rocky Balboa (Exhibit 2) to create the required buzz as in 1996. Although this time in 2011,
they could employ celebrities such as Mike Tyson or the cast of the movie Superbad, Ben Stiller
as Zoolander and Ryan Reynolds as the superhero (Exhibit 15).

 The Brisk Brothers: Use the six Claymation characters – Brisk Brothers, each representing one
of the six flavors with a unique personality and bottle design of Brisk (Exhibit 16) so that the
brothers can create the expected creative mojo. The wise cracking brothers could host a show
in which they highlight and comment on the most “Brisk” content. They could engage directly
with the users and collect submissions from users and rate them as “Brisk” or “ Not Brisk”.
They could also engage with users directly on Facebook, YouTube or Twitter and create a
Facebook app that would allow users to create a Brisk Brother version of themselves and send
message to their friends.

 Creative characters: The third possible option was to create advertisements by using black and
white puppet versions of popular actors who had portrayed number of iconic characters.
Example includes Will Ferrell as the actor who was visited by puppet versions of Ron Burgundy
of Anchorman, Frank “The Tank” Richard of Old School and Ricky Bobby of Talladega Nights
(Exhibit 17). Other celebrity possibilities included Jack Black, Al Pacino, John C. Riley, and John
Travolta.

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  “Now that’s Brisk”: Use the black-and-white Claymation versions of popular celebrities or
characters, in tribute to the original 1990s Brisk campaign. These ads could be used to tell a
well-known story involving popular characters in a “Brisk” 30 second short-story format; in the
climax, the character would have his creative mojo revived by drinking Brisk. Examples
included The Hangover, Jersey Shore, Lost or Lollapalooza. (Exhibit 18). The campaign would
feature an interactive website in which users could create their own puppets, view galleries of
work from others and “Briskify” the things around them, thus promoting the product.

3. Recommendations
I recommend that Brisk should utilize a viral campaign to target consumers and increase Brisk
sales. One of the target audience, millennials are spending an increasing amount of time on social
media. Millennials are also known for their use of technology and involvement in social networks.
Not only that, but they also perceive social media and online content better than they do TV
advertising. It is less intrusive and the consumer actually wants to see the content posted in an
online viral marketing campaign. Despite the fact that TV is a much more standard approach and
may be perceived as less risky, it is also likely to be less effective, especially within the target
audience. Television advertising is also not likely to be seen by millennials, as they are tech savvy
and know how to skip the commercials. If they skip the commercials, they are likely not paying
attention to them. Not only is this because they are multitasking, but it is also because TV
commercials tend to be repetitive, uninteresting and invasive. With viral marketing, content is
shareable and allows consumers to express themselves (because “they are what they share”).
Users find online content more interesting because they can relate to it and can engage in
conversations with other consumers and the brand itself. This lets them see what others believe
about the brand, adding credibility. It also gives the brand a more personal and relatable feel than
do TV ads, which are cold and tend to just talk at the customer rather than with the customer. As a
brand appealing to Millennials, who are seekers of entertainment, it must use a modern and fun
way to communicate to them. If competitors are already present in Social Media, Brisk should also
be. If not, it could possibly create a negative perception for the Brisk brand as a boring, old school
brand that does not understand their true needs and interests. Also, this will much more certainly
meet their goal of attaining more Facebook likes. It would also have the added benefit of
increasing engagement with consumer, something that television advertising is much less likely to
do.
Because consumers are tech-savvy and interested in connecting with friends immediately and
frequently, Pepsi must consider the consumer views of this medium and how they are related to
both PepsiCo. and Brisk as brands. Using a viral marketing campaign based on the concept of The
“Brisk Brothers” will be Barnard and Tamaros’ best bet. By meeting the objectives of reintroducing
the Brisk brand, convincing Arizona drinkers to switch to Brisk, and generating positive word of
mouth, the Brisk team can improve both their brand and the brand of PepsiCo. as a whole. This is
true so long as they utilize customer perceptions and desires to create engaging content that is
both “likeable” and “shareable,” and receive assistance from powerful online influencers. This is
important for PepsiCo. because if consumers know that Brisk is one of its sub brands, it can have a
highly positive impact on PepsiCo. Consumers are very particular about their preference for either
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 Pepsi or Coke. In this case, having a favorable opinion of Brisk could possibly result in a positive
effect for other products as well because it could give PepsiCo. the perception of being a more fun
and youthful company.
Proposed Contingency Plan: In the case of a failed viral ad, scope out the most controversial
influencer or trend of the moment, and explore an attention grabbing concept to display on Brisk’s
owned media to draw attention to the brand for a small price.

4. Discussion of Potentials Drawbacks of Proposed Solution

Although unrelated brands like Tesla use only social media to advertise their car Products, the
economics of advertising on social medium in case of beverages like Brisk is unclear. Nevertheless,
it is generally cheaper than TV. It is considered inexpensive, but is not free because they have to
pay influencers to spread the content, and therefore strategy to use this medium could be a
gamble. The problem with this, and a huge drawback of viral marketing, is that the majority of
online videos do not successfully go viral (only 3% reach more than 25,000 views). In addition there
is also a risk of falling behind competitors in social media presence. For e.g. Arizona, already had a
whopping 926,000 likes: a number that Brisk would have to try to match. In addition on social
media, there could be spam threats while advertising the product and the advertisements can be
easily imitated to make more impactful campaigns for competing products.