The latest marketing news from Pepsi has been causing quite a stir in advertising and marketing circles. If you haven’t heard what they’re doing, let me fill you in. Each year, the Super Bowl means millions of dollars spent on TV advertising to reach what’s considered the largest, most ideal viewing audience your ad budget (and maybe the next year’s budget, too) can buy. Pepsi has traditionally been one of the big event’s big spenders. This year, they’re trying something new in an effort to do more than reach an audience, they’re trying to affect change, too, using a little technology tactic we here at Ballywho Interactive like to call social media marketing.

Pepsi is spending $20 million in a new social media campaign that’s packed with purpose as much as it is punch. Check out the link here. (www.refresheverything.com). It’s called the Pepsi Refresh Project and the concept behind it is simple: since communities everywhere are lacking funds to do the things they need to help out their arts programs, their neighborhoods, the families struggling to get by, the homes and parks that need renovating and restoring, and so on… Pepsi’s willing to invest in community efforts to make these “refresh” projects happen if you do the planning and rally the support to vote for your idea.

The official rules and submission elements were put in place early last week, so now it’s up to the general public to embrace this unique campaign and make it either a very successful gamble for Pepsi or one of the big marketing goofs of 2010 by end of the year. The process is a fairly easy one. 

• On January 13, Pepsi made it possible for folks to start submitting their ideas using their online toolkit and to get others to vote for their idea.
• Refreshment projects can fall into any one of six categories: health, arts & culture, food & shelter, the planet, neighborhoods and education.
• By February 1, Pepsi will begin announcing the first monthly winners.
• Each month, Pepsi will award $5k to up to 10 awardees who need to get an inspired idea off the ground.
• They’ll award $25k to up to 10 awardees each month for individuals and small groups who as they put it “can work lean and mean.”
• Pepsi will award $50k to up to 10 awardees per month for companies and organizations who can put serious time into their project.
• And finally, Pepsi will award $250k to up to two awardees per month for organizations who can dedicate a significant amount of time and resources to their cause.

Pretty incredible, right? Are the wheels in your head churning right now? Ours are, too! It’s far too soon to tell but we think it’s a fabulous idea and a great way to use the grass-roots nature of social media for great causes while helping foster a positive brand image. So the people who do the rallying get to be the heroes, those benefiting from the projects reap the results and Pepsi leaves it all as the ones who made it all possible and who foot the bill (and for a lot less than hiring a major pop star to stand in a 30-second spot holding their can for a one-day-a-year televised sporting event). Sounds like a smart idea to us but the real proof will be in the buy-in from the international public. With Pepsi having just a little under 300,000 followers on Facebook compared with rival Coke and its 4 MILLION FANS, some marketing and media folks are speculating that it could be a risky move.

So what do you think, Whoville? Will you be submitting your own neighborhood revitalization project or nonprofit fundraising campaign idea and making social media marketing history with Pepsi?