Historically the brand’s imagery leveraged very commonly used refreshment language, so our challenge was to create a visual story that took the idea of traditional refreshment cues to the next level. Pepsi Max is also a global brand, so whatever we created had to have legs flexible enough to work across a variety of different cultures and have both the visual and verbal language translate evenly.

After a broad concepting phase where we explored a number of different ideas, we kept coming back to the simplicity of beautiful product photography. Our ideation around cold resulted in a number of simple conceptual layouts grounded in ice, with each one telling its own story as part of a broader narrative. We paired it with clever copy that supported the image, but the beauty of the imagery is that each one still has a clear and powerful message without supporting communication. All of the layouts were constructed in-camera without any post production compositing.

The impact these visuals had in market is remarkable, and the influence on brand perception has been extraordinary. Pepsi Max’s brand value increased 17% versus year average. Fantastic results in the 600ml category as well with Pepsi Max up 27%. The activation was in 15 national accounts in the UK alone including Superdrug, Tesco and Sainsbury as well as 9400 secondary displays across grocery formats and convenience stores. Also included in the UK rollout was 400 grocery field displays and over 400 trade displays at front of depot.