India loves cricket. Pepsi blue wipes were aired during cricket matches to ensure high frequency. Valuable buy-in by leading TV programmes was also hugely valuable. Just before the ad breaks, presenters gave viewers a cue that a Pepsi blue spot was coming up so they should have their cards ready. Credibility was added with editorial coverage on news channels and content weaved into leading TV programmes to explain the promotion mechanics.

Volume sales of Pepsi were stagnating despite high advertising recall, powerful imagery and strong emotional connection with consumers. Our goal was to increase consumption of Pepsi in the home.

Pepsi’s market share in the multi-serve home pack segment reached 56% - an all-time high as sales in spy card decoder towns soared by 10%. The prize redemption rate reached 30% (compared to 10% normally) and 12 million cards were liquidated, against initial expectations of eight million.

How often do consumers make an appointment to watch an ad? With this campaign, they did just that. Promotional awareness scores went up to 45 (compared to 37-38 normally) as consumer excitement mounted. They became so engrossed in the campaign that evidence shows they actually made an appointment with our spots, translating the already established emotional connection between Pepsi and consumers into sales and consumption.

Our strategy was to make Pepsi’s TV spots really count. When they are at home consumers spend most of their time watching TV, so it was the ideal medium. But to get them looking out for Pepsi’s ads we launched a consumer promotion that made the ads a must-watch interactive event. Encrypted cards were attached to 1.5 and 2 litre bottles containing a secret code that would reveal a guaranteed prize. The encrypted card would only reveal what they had won when they held it against the TV screen during a Pepsi blue commercial.