Youth to bail celebrities out by calling on Pepsi's 09004422222

Picture these situations: you've just banged up your dad's car; your parents come home to find you getting cozy with your date; you cancel a date to attend a party with a so-called 'friend' and your girlfriend/boyfriend shows up at the same party.

Pepsi's 'What's Your Way' campaign seeks cool solutions to such tricky situations, which often land youngsters, and even celebrities, in trouble. Through this campaign, which was launched in October, the brand has thrown such problems at youngsters, via Pepsi My Cans, the internet, print, mobile marketing, television, radio, on-ground activation, campus posters, and communication at youth hangouts. The youth can 'compete' for the cool quotient, by calling/SMSing their responses about how they would get out of the sticky situations.

On dialing the number, 09004422222, the caller is asked to choose the celebrity (John Abraham, MS Dhoni, Ranbir Kapoor or Deepika Padukone) to take the situation from. After punching in the number option for the selected celebrity, a situation is posed by the celebrity and the caller has to record the answer within 30 seconds.

During the activity, everyday, one youngster will get a chance to become the 'Youngistaani of the Day', entitling him/her to a month's supply of free Pepsi and Rs 5,000 worth of SMS talk time. Participants could also win 'What's Your Way' ring tones and free talk time. Pepsi aims to give consumers about Rs 20 lakh worth of free talk time.

Sandeep Singh Arora, executive vice president -- marketing, Cola, PepsiCo India says, "Pepsi has always been synonymous with youthfulness, a 'can do' attitude and 'dare for more' spirit. Today, many brands are vying for share of mind in the youth space. With the new campaign, we aim to take engagement a notch higher, by starting a dialogue with youngsters, thereby becoming a part of their conversations."

The campaign, which targets youngsters in the age group of 18-20 years, has been cracked by JWT, Pepsi's creative agency. It is being executed across Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Ahmedabad and Pune by Portland Outdoor.

Hari Krishnan, executive vice-president, JWT says, "Outdoor works as the best platform to pass on the number to youngsters who are on-the-go and may not have enough time to pay complete attention to the TVCs."

He also thinks the call-in option is one of the key drivers of the campaign. In May this year, in a similar campaign, deodorant brand Axe used an integrated voice recording system (or IVRS), wherein callers to the Axe number got to talk to an Axe angel, Tanya, who asked them some simple questions to check if they had the "Axe effect". The number would also allow callers to set an alarm and they'd be woken up by the sexy voice service.

Krishnan says, "For the youth, cyberspace is the most happening thing, but everyone may not have access to it. This is when voice becomes an easier option for participating in a contest. Also, in this case (Pepsi's), you do not get to hear a boring recorded call centre voice, but the familiar voice of your favourite celebrity."