Pepsi Philippines was set to launch its special edition cans in collaboration with one of the world’s biggest K-pop groups, Blackpink. Rather than just announcing this collaboration, we saw an opportunity to launch the product during the pandemic, while helping stuck-at-home teens reconnect with their love for Blackpink, Pepsi and their fandom communities.

Using AR, we turned our limited edition cans into Pepsi Can Light Sticks. The first ever light stick by a cola can. Specially made for all their K-pop stanning on Instagram - for dancing, idol raving, online concert screaming, and more. The Pepsi Can Light Stick does everything a light stick does, for the price of 50¢. It also came with music to fully bring the concert experience to life.

Fans all over the world hold up light sticks simultaneously in concerts, to feel like a collective and show their love to their K-pop idol groups, and share them on their feeds. It's become the ultimate symbol of being a proud and committed member of the fandom. But it also costs $40.

We announced the limited edition cans online, using our influencers to demonstrate the Pepsi Can Light Stick. By targeting K-pop fan pages and groups, word spread by quickly with every post and story leading to our e-commerce store, where our limited edition cans can be purchased. The Pepsi Blackpink cans sold out in 6 minutes.

• With a campaign budget the cost of 142 real light sticks, over 218,000 Pepsi Can Light Stick Filters lit up the social feeds during the promo period (via, Pepsi Philippines Instagram Page 2021)

• When our rival outspent us 9:1, we dominated 96.7% of online conversations (via, Nielsen AQX 2021)

• Teens were connecting over this shared experiences together: rekindling their love for Blackpink and Pepsi by sharing photos and posts of themselves and tagging their friends. With promo activation resulting in 205MM Impressions, 39M Reach and 2.5MM Engagement during the period (via, Spredfast 2021)

• Pepsi cans sold out in 6 mins, with 8x resell value in other e-commerce platforms

• +110% sales increase during the campaign period (Pepsi Internal)

• +9% increase in Brand Consideration for Pepsi, versus prior year (via, Kantar 2021)