�New Year In-store Promo Action�«Pepsi Holiday Exchange Rate»�

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April 2002

Kiev, Ukraine

“Pepsi Holiday Exchange Rate”

• National in-store promo action during X-mas season 2001, built on a unique mechanic of everyday change of entry level

Creative team

Client representative

• Georgiy Mayorov - marketing director of BBH company

Agency representatives

• Irina Makarenko - Promo Manager of Talan Communications agency
• Tatiyana Pogrebnaya - Pepsi account manager of Provid/BBDO advertising agency
• Kirill Chichkan - art-director of Provid/BBDO advertising agency

Agency

• PR&BTL agency Talan Communications within Provid/BBDO group of agencies (Kiev, Ukraine)
• Born in 1998
• Wide range of BTL services: Sales Promotion, Event Marketing, Public Relations, CRM
• 20 people + regional representatives in 36 cities/towns + promoters’ teams (around 700 people)
• The idea of the action was worked up by team consisted of Talan promo department, Client and Provid/BBDO advertising agency

Company

• Pepsi Co Ukraine is the worldwide manufacturer of soft drinks
• In Ukraine represents Pepsi, 7UP and Mirinda brands
• Had not conducted wide advertising and BTL activity in the region till last year
• Presented action is the second experience in terms of in-store actions conducted by the company
• The main competitor ”Coca-Cola” is a very strong at the market, spends millions on advertising budgets and conducts numerous BTL actions every season
• At that time when the described action was taking place, “Coca-Cola” conducted in-store action too, but it was less successful in comparison with Pepsi action, and the main reason was that two actions were conducted simultaneously

Problem

• Client planned to conduct Promo action in shops, fixing very high entry level - 12 l of Pepsi to participate to get nice Pepsi yello tree ball:
• only big cities residents, visitors of central shops or C&C could buy such volume of drink
• such purchase is rahter expensive for many small towns, and not many people can spend about $5 for a drink
• In that way, the Agency faced with the problem that entry level should be different for different regions keeping same set of advertising announcing materials

Creative decision

• Action was built on the idea of “exchange rate flucuation”, which was unsteady as a usual currency rate
• Main visual material was a hard poster, made in a style of a usual street board announcing currency exchange rates
• The prize (branded New Year ball in nice wrap) was a hard currency
• But entry level was changing. There was a pocket in the stand and a set of numbers (capacity in litres) to change the rate figure
• The action was called “Pepsi Holiday Exchange Rate” to justify Pepsi rate fluctuation

Criteria for rate

• The rate changes depended on the result of last day sellings and specific character of every city, every shop, day of week etc.
• The rate varied from 3 to 12 l.

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Coverage

• December 5-30, 2001 (20 working days)
• 10 cities: Kiev, Kharkov, Donetsk, Dnepropetrovsk, Odessa, Lvov, Zaporozhye, Lugansk, Summy, Chernovtsy
• 240 promoters
• 120 points of sale of two categories
• “А” category
• trading networks and separate points of Modern Trade: big supermarkets, C&C
• these points differed by the complicacy to get agreement and by the payment for permissions
• 21 points of sale
• “В” category
• self-service stores, gastronoms and trade centres
• 99 points of sale

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Action 1

• Ukraine started with the rate “3l”. The initial «rate» was established for 3 first days of the action. But after first agiotage day, quick decision to raise the “rate” was taken in all cities.
• in Lugansk more than 70% of all prizes were given out for the first 2 days.
• The action started successfully, speed up very quickly and the average rate reached 6-7 litres for the New Year ball at the end of the week
• The exchange rate grew constantly and reached its maximum level «12 l for 1 ball» in Kharkov from December 10 till December 27

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Action 2

• Initially we planned to change the rate twice a week making decision in Kiev. But first days of the action showed that the rate is required to be modified every day often involving local people to make a decision

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Agency took the initiative to regulate “Pepsi rate” everyday

Agency carried out a huge volume of work making the action as much effective as it could be

Success of the mechanics

The proposed mechanics of «Pepsi rate» fluctuation allowed:

• to take into account the specifity of:
• every city (capital, big city, others)
• every trade point (size, location)
• every action day (workday, day off, pre-holiday)
• to take into account the purchasing power during the pre-holiday period
• to react quickly to the changes in every trade point
• to reach maximum sales results
• to use all stock of prepared prizes

Entourage of the action

• POS materials:
• posters А2
• hard poster
• Now and then some funny situations happened: often people confused the folded stand with stand of real “Currency exchange”
• promo-tables for action products
• action topsigns on promo-tables
• garlands with Pepsi logo
• Prizes:
• branded New-Year tree decoration balls in holiday wrap
• Promoters uniform:
• the fancy dress of Pepsi-Santa-Claus: blue waistcoat + cap

Bright, exclusive action entourage made for its best visualization and attracted great attention of customers

Conclusions

• The changes of the rate was taken as necessary attribute of the game, and excluded the possible negative reactions.
• The mechanic made us adjust entry level to each particular region needs which are very different from city to city

The action gave us a unique experience of mechanic adapation to each selling point

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Sales results

• Every hour the Ukraine sold 8l
• maximum - 41.2 l/hour
• minimum - 2.2l/hour.
• The leader of sales for 1 day - 376l in 1 store!
• to compare: before the action one selling point could sell 10-12l a day, in some stores - even 1 bottle a day

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Sales volume increased from 7 to 80 times!