Pepsi's Brilliant Burger-Wrapper Ads: How They Were Made

Sometimes an ad idea is so perfect, creatives find it almost painful to look at. It fills you with a mix of admiration, jealousy and tentative optimism that you'll think of something so pure for a client someday. That's been a consistent reaction to Pepsi's newest work from Miami-based agency Alma DDB since the newest executions in the soft drink's #BetterWithPepsi campaign debuted. While the visual—Pepsi's logo revealed in the crumpled folds of easily identifiable hamburger wrappers—is spot-on, the work is amplified by its counterintuitive message: that Pepsi is better with burgers from chains that notably don't serve Pepsi at all. It's a combo that immediately gotten consumers curious and left creatives downright wistful in their appreciation. https://twitter.com/kaitzeit/status/1397742015165648898 To learn how the ads came together, Adweek caught up with Todd Kaplan, Pepsi's marketing vp. He shares how the work fits into the brand's ongoing, challenger-minded campaign—and what he thinks other creative teams can learn about creating ideas like this for their own clients. Adweek: How did the idea for using the fast food wrappers first come about?Todd Kaplan, vp of marketing, Pepsi: All of our best ideas on Pepsi are rooted in deep cultural and product truths. We’ve known for a while a truth about our product—that burgers simply taste better with Pepsi. However, there is an unspoken cultural truth that we tapped into for this—the fact that for the past 30-plus years, the Top 3 U.S. burger chains have denied their consumers the opportunity to enjoy their burgers the optimal way: with an ice-cold Pepsi. So as a challenger brand, we wanted to lean into this tension and be a bit provocative in how we brought this concept to life creatively. Did the idea for the visual—Pepsi's logo embedded in crumpled wrappers—evolve over its development, or was it initially envisioned the way it turned out?The concept evolved quite a bit from its early days. In the initial discussions, it actually began as more of a nebulous artistic exercise around how and where the Pepsi logo could exist within other partners marks. But then we connected this workstream to the innate tension around how burgers taste better with Pepsi, but are currently not sold with Pepsi at the biggest burger chains, as a way to further refine and sharpen the execution, making the story much stronger. And as we pushed on the creative execution in partnership with Alma, we didn’t want to manipulate any of the images, as we thought it would be much authentic and dynamic if we could achieve the output of the Pepsi logo through origami—so that is what we did and how you see it coming to life today. The response to this print work has been incredibly positive among the creative marketing community online. Why do you think this work is instantly so compelling, especially to other creatives? I think it is the simplicity of it all—and how it ties to a clear product and cultural insight. This creative has subtly but powerfully brought awareness to an unarticulated cultural truth and empowered an entire set of consumers to take control of their own beverage brand decisions as they seek to enjoy their food to the fullest. I think it has also resonated due to its timeliness—launching this campaign around National Hamburger Day, in the lead up to Memorial Day weekend, one of the biggest burger and cola weekends of the year, really brought it all together. At the end of the day, Pepsi lovers can appreciate the message, and those who don’t drink Pepsi...well, at least it gets them thinking. Some casual observers seem confused about the work, since Pepsi isn't served at the fast food chains featured. How would you describe the goal of the work? What do you hope it makes consumers think about? I think that is the whole point—we aren’t served at these fast food chains, so we want to drive awareness of that fact and empower consumers to make their own choices around the beverages that they drink. So linking it to the imagery, we thought it was fun to reinforce that while Pepsi may not always be on the menu with your favorite burger, it is always in the picture. The bigger goal of this work is to reinforce the larger campaign we launched at the beginning of the month that is all about Pepsi’s role with food, called #BetterWithPepsi. We know Pepsi lovers are unapologetic around how they enjoy their food, and we want to make sure that as they make their food or meal choices, that they remember what foods go best with Pepsi—from burgers to pizza and everything in between. This is why we are currently offering to pay for a Pepsi with any burger in this execution—no matter where it is from—to reinforce the product truth that all burgers simply go better with Pepsi. Do you see this being a campaign that expands with new executions, or will it stand alone as a one-time set of visuals? It is already part of the larger #BetterWithPepsi campaign we launched at the beginning of May, where we created a dozen commercials showcasing the unapologetic love of all types of food with Pepsi, and we even created the world’s first “fast beverage” restaurant—a nationwide ghost kitchen called “Pep’s Place”—that featured an entire menu that was built around what foods go best with Pepsi. While I can’t comment on any specific plans at the moment, I am confident that we will continue to find new creative ways to drive Pepsi’s association with a variety of other foods / cuisines in a fun and disruptive way to reinforce our key message that America’s favorite foods go #BetterWithPepsi. What advice would you give to designers who want to capture this kind of creative idea for a major client and actually get it produced?I’d say a few things here: First is that I’m a huge proponent in starting the creative process with this idea of putting culture first and the brand second. So this means the first step of the creative process should revolve around ensuring there are sound enough consumer insights and cultural truths to push off from with the creative execution. Next is I would make sure the execution is executed in a manner that is truly authentic to the brand, both from a visual identity standpoint as well as in its positioning and tonality. Then finally, I would think through the full surround-sound execution and experience to see if there are other opportunities to plus it up and further extend the idea, ideally connecting to cultural moment in time that can help further generate mass awareness and earned chatter—further driving brand equity. When you combine all of this with the soft skills of being highly proactive and collaborative in how you talk about and build upon ideas with your clients, it should make for the richest discussions that have the potential to push good ideas into great ones, and enable the concept evolve and grow even stronger over time. CREDITS: Client: PepsiVP Marketing, Todd KaplanSr. Director Marketing, JP Bittencourt Agency: Alma DDBCEO/Creative Chairman, Luis Miguel MessianuCo-President/CCO, Alvar SuñolCreative Director, Daniel CorreaCreative Director, Bruno TradAccount Director, Meg VallsSVP, Production, Michelle HeadleyVP, Director of Production, Yeyo MarquezExecutive Producer, Jay RiveraPhotographer, Marçal VaquerPaper Artist, Raya SaderRetoucher, JLS Digital Retoucher

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Pepsi Shares the Story Behind Its Brilliant Burger-Wrapper Ads

How a 'nebulous artistic exercise' yielded some of the brand's best work in years

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David Griner