Why is this work relevant for Brand Experience & Activation ?

Vietnamese youngsters want to be cool, and they are aware about the environmental issues but do not act (yet). As a youth-culture catalyst, Pepsi wanted to give this young generation a platform to raise their voice. The approval of a “cool” brand like Pepsi allows the youth to activate and fully experience the campaign.Understanding that, Pepsi wants to lead the conversation about protecting the environment and ignite youth to raise their voice and protect the environment. The campaign is launched via highest traffic locations of the youth and convince them using direct communication.

Background

Situation: Due to various cultural reasons the Vietnamese youth often feel like a forgotten and unheard generation. Despite this, they are becoming increasingly vocal and passionate in particular about the environment. Vietnamese youngsters are living in a littered & polluted country: 4th largest contributor to marine plastic pollution globally. 8 million tonnes of plastic is dumped into the ocean every year. 50% only of waste ends up in dumps, the rest flows into the sea. Brief: Develop a campaign for Pepsi that engages Vietnamese youth about water, plastic or waste issues by connecting it with something they consider COOL. Objective: Make people throw their garbage in the trash cans.

Describe the creative idea (20% of vote)

The idea is simple: turning trash into something valuable. In this case: an opinion. Because nobody will throw their opinion on the ground. We created trash bins with thought provoking cultural questions on them, aiming to turn a behavioral change in a habit. The question are about cultural topics that the youngsters care and debate about. Questions that provoke the youth to feel compelled into answering. People can answer the questions by putting trash either in “Yes" or “No”, depending if they agree or disagree to the question. Whatever the opinion is, each piece of trash gets recycled. The bins were placed around Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam in popular youth areas. All trash was monitored and displayed online, in real-time. Targeted media showed local outcomes in the voting locations. And, finally, all results were displayed on a limited edition of Pepsi bottles.

Describe the strategy (20% of vote)

Data Gathering: We collect trash at the end of the day and weigh it. The final result will depend on which answer has a higher trash weight. Target Audience: Vietnamese 16 – 25 years old, who care about the environmental issues. Approach: Enabling the voice of the new Generation, we choose to turn trash into something they cannot throw away on the ground: opinions. We appeal to their desire to be heard. Each piece of trash they would normally throw on the street, now becomes much more valuable, because they can use it to vote for change: Call to Action: Turning trash into opinion, we raise youth’s voice and tackle them to act by asking the questions they care about most, instead of general call to action “Please put trash into bins”. They are urged to answer these questions, because no one ever cared enough to ask them before.

Describe the execution (30% of vote)

Implementation: The trash cans were placed around Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam in popular youth areas. Malls, boutique court yards, football fields and universities. Timeline: From 18/03/2019 (Global Recycling Day) to the end of April. Placement: Malls, Universities, Coffee Stores and Football Fields. Scale: Citywide in Ho Chi Minh City (The most populous city in Vietnam).

List the results (30% of vote)

Business impact: The campaign generated positive sentiment scores on social media, with 24k mentions making this Pepsi’s highest organic mention in the history of tracking Response rate: n/a Impressions: Around 5 mio online, and 260.000 offline Change in behaviour: The first step in turning a behaviour into a habit, throwing your garbage in a trash bin 4 tons of trash collected.