Pepsi's RefreshEverything Campaign: By the Numbers

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Pepsi, which enjoys strong brand awareness among consumers, sought to go one step further in its most recent campaign, RefreshEverything.

"We now want to engage consumers at a deeper level," said Ana Maria Irazabal, marketing director, Pepsi, at the Interactive Advertising Bureau's online video conference today in New York City. What's more, Pepsi aimed for a better way to reach Millennials, or people ages 14 to 29, instead of solely relying on traditional media such as television.

Pepsi worked with R/GA to develop the RefreshEverything campaign, which ran over 23 days in January and was timed to coincide with President Obama's Jan. 20 inauguration. The campaign started with a branded YouTube channel and a microsite, RefreshEverything.com.

The campaign used paid search and display ads on Yahoo and Google to drive traffic to the two destinations. A link on the YouTube channel connected Web site visitors to Facebook. Other channels, including e-mail marketing and a .mobi site, helped drive visitors to the sites.

And an ad invited people to create a YouTube video, "Dear Mr. President," as an open letter to President Obama. As one option, consumers could record a message from a Web cam after clicking on the ad.

This ad campaign marked the first time that video was collected through a banner ad, said Luane Kohnke, managing director, analytics and accountability at R/GA.

Capping off the campaign: On inauguration day, Pepsi ran take-over ads on Yahoo's homepage and YouTube, driving an "extraordinary amount of traffic" to RefreshEverything, according to Irazabal.

Here is an overview of the ad campaign's results:

• 6 million people visited RefreshEverything on Facebook. About 85 percent were from the target audience of Millennials.
  
  
• 174,000 fans of Refresh Everything on Facebook.
  
  
• There were 400 video submissions posted on YouTube, surpassing YouTube's benchmark of 200 videos. Another 300 videos were submitted, but not used. Most of those were not complete and some contained disrespectful language, according to Irazabal and Kohnke.
  
  
• The videos received over four million page views.
  
  
• Over 700 blog postings mentioned the ad campaign.

Irazabal declined to disclose the budget for the ad campaign; she also didn't disclose how the budget is divided between different channels.