Pepsi: Can It?
How Tim Burton could’ve made $1 million today and why the road to social media is paved with good intentions.
The recent Pepsi redesign produced a new logo, fresh packaging and a slew of mixed response across the social web spanning the entire it-sucks-it-rocks spectrum — not quite the all-around applause last year’s award-winning new Coke identity got, but still an interesting conversation to follow.
The evolution of the logo alone sparked a heated discussion in the design community.
A multi-talented artist friend of ours loved the very first one best, declaring: “It looks like Tim Burton did it.” Which of course gives anything more street cred than any advertising can buy. And the guys at Make The Logo Bigger just launched a Design Your Own Pepsi Logo contest on Flickr for all the naysayers and smart-asses who think they know better than Pepsi’s $1 million design team.
Meanwhile, the ever-eager Steve Rubel of Edelman, Pepsi’s PR firm, got to spreading the word ever which way he could. First, influential social media types got a kit of 10 Pepsi cans showing the evolution of the logo, complete with a teaser note.
Then, a YouTube video popped up tracing Pepsi’s design history. And despite the questionable editing and the cheesy music choice, we found it somewhat endearing.
Rubel even set up a room on FriendFeed called the The Pepsi Cooler where Pepsi is inviting ordinary web users to help shape the company’s media future. An admirable, albeit misguided initiative as it seems that so far, the bulk of room members are professional social media all-stars. Heck, Chris Brogan is on there.
Also from the well-intentioned but misguided front: We came across this cool tag cloud in the FriendFeed room, showing responses to the redesign. No love link and thus no clue where it came from, just a random image hosted on the Amazon cloud server — but pretty neat nonetheless.
It may be smart of Edelman/Pepsi to actually stand behind the Flickr contest and hear what the design community has to say in the only language it speaks. After all, they put themselves on the social media table, so now it’s all fair game. And, sure, it could turn into a food fight — but they’d better be ready to join in and play.
But enough about our take. What’s your 2 cents on Pepsi’s $1 million redesign initiative?
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For what it’s worth, I like the new logo. Totally embodies modern minimalism.
But I think you’re right about their PR efforts being a bit stuck inside the marketing bubble. I’m a designer, as are most of my friends, and that’s the first I hear of the whole redesign initiative, which makes me wonder how exactly they plan on reaching us average “end-users.”
Meh, I’m not so hot on the new look. Pretty bland. But then again what do I know, I’m a die-hard Coke girl. (No, not THAT coke…)
lol @ Alexis.
I like the new logo. It is modern, and funky.
And after seeing the new Coke Zero packaging, these dude’s have to pull up their socks.
I honestly think it is to 90’s style futuristic like it reminds me to much of what APPLE did with the chrome minimal mac computers.
When you look at this new logo it screams that it is trying to hard to up hold its brand power!
I am over it!
I do not like the logo redesign. I believe Pepsi has to focus on developing a better overall strategy and a strategic global push. Coke is everywhere. Pepsi is not. This is a crucial difference. Pepsi must find a creative but strategic plan to make this happen. The new logo is a slight change from the origianal classic. In my opinion, if you are going to change, change. It’s not good enough to leave a classic. Pepsi can be what it want’s but I dont know if this is the approach.
To me, it’s not so much that it is a bad design. It just doesn’t fit. The type especially seems a bit TOO modern for a soda company. The design as whole reminds me of something I would see on vitamin water.
it looks old
Nikki,
I generally agree. However, just to play devil’s advocate, I have to say that the reason Pepsi gave Coke a run for its money starting in the 80’s and still going strong (despite much lower distribution and more modest advertising budgets) is that they embraced being the irreverent underdog. That attitude, that strategic positioning, is the brand’s heritage. And it certainly wasn’t achieved by complying with the fads of the day — like today’s “high-tech/2.0″ look.
I think, in that respect, the new logo reflects some misunderstood attempt to be “relevant” and dilutes the brand’s deepest DNA.
i think the can is nice. lol thats all..NICE. lol its looks rly old tho…but yet NICE. lol u nice? IAM NICE and the new can is NICE. thanks..thats all