Last year I commented on VW adopting a rather high risk strategy for the launch of the new GTi; they decided to put then entire launch campaign into an iPhone application. Now as much as we love Apple and their brilliant iPhone, even we had to accept that this felt like a step too far. Only in January and we already have another example of a bold (or maybe stupid?) marketing choice.

Pepsi appear to be taking a massive gamble this year, they are pulling their multi-million dollar Superbowl opening ad (which they have run for many years) and instead running a $20 million social media campaign. Is this a brave calculated risk or just a plain stupid move influenced by an over zealous ad agency?  Personally I can’t see this having a very happy ending.

Depending how you measure social media standing, Pepsi are arguably not doing so well at the moment. Compared to their main competitor, Coke, they only have some 250k Facebook fans compared to Coke who have some 4 million. Now you could argue that this campaign will turn the situation around and that maybe up until today Pepsi have been a little lack lustre in their social campaigning compared to their arch rival.

The idea behind the Refresh campaign seems adequate, but will it really pay off and is adequate good enough? Does it have the edge for instance of the Burger King “sacrifice a friend” campaign? My view would be that this is just not edgy enough and too safe and fluffy.

It will be interesting to see how this pans out. Of course should it turn out to be a disaster then the ramifications for social media could be quite profound. Having watched one well funded campaign die horribly, it is hard to imagine too many other CMO’s reaching for their cheque books and meaningfully funding Social Media campaigns.

As the Chinese might say (albeit not on Google apparently…), may we live in interesting times.