Devesh Gupta
Digital

Viral Now: Pepsi does the Unbelievable

Very recently PepsiCo surprised people in London with aliens, tiger, and robots attacking them. The idea was to promote Pepsi Max, a beverage from the stable of PepsiCo.

As a part of its 'Unbelievable' campaign to promote Pepsi Max, a beverage that claims to be just cola and no added sugar, PepsiCo decided to surprise common people on the streets of London.

Viral Now: Pepsi does the Unbelievable
With the use of Augmented Reality technology, Pepsi Max rigged a bus stop in London and tricked the commuters in making them think that they are steps away from a loose tiger, alien spaceships and robots that are attacking them. The commuters were surprised, to the point that some even got a shock for life.

The idea converted an otherwise boring bus-stop into a point of interest not for the people of London but across the world. The brand shot the entire episode and the reactions of the people and released the video on YouTube which till date has got over 3 million views in the first five days of its inception.

The Digital OOH campaign involved installing a screen on the bus stop showing a live feed of the street ahead, to give the illusion of a see-through display. The screen anyhow showcased well thought creative content to surprise the otherwise occupied commuters making them think that something unbelievable is happening.

The creative part of the campaign was executed by AMV BBDO, London while the OOH part was done by Talon Outdoor. OMD UK was the media buying agency for the campaign.

The campaign was a part of its Unbelievable series from Pepsi Max. Other legs for the campaign involved Pepsi Max urging people to share vines, where they will be directly uploaded on the billboards that were placed across cities in UK.

It is also posting branded video content on it Unbelievable channel on YouTube. For one such video, titled 'Can a human run a loop', the brand got more than seven million views. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTcdutIcEJ4) The video was published nearly a month ago. The brand plans to put a new video every week into this channel.

Pepsi Max has been there in the market for a long time and was first released in UK nearly two decades ago.

(Viral Now is a section about videos that are catching people's fancy on social media).

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