PepsiCo Team of Champions

PepsiCo came to us with a challenge: they have a variety of brands and sponsorships spanning the soccer space between Pepsi, Lay’s and Gatorade, that all created scattershot messaging. Their place in the soccer world needed a foundation, a reason for being. They had a million dollars of ad spend and simply needed some brand-driven creative to fill it. We proposed a radical, but simple alternative: don’t spend a dime on media. Give it to people who need it most –– the communities who love the game the most but often find themselves priced out. The hypothesis was: do something worth talking about, and the impressions will come. It took a bold client, but more than 2 billion impressions later, it turned out to be the right call. Here’s how we did it:

Our insight: whether it’s field fees, equipment donations, or simple admin costs, it doesn’t take a lot to make a big impact in the soccer space.

So we created, developed, branded, and activated the PepsiCo Team of Champions purpose program, which invested $1 million dollars to provide the gift of the game to underserved and underrepresented soccer communities in the U.S., benefitting 30 organizations and nearly 20,000 participants across a variety of demographics and communities.

We created an omnichannel bilingual PR and content ecosystem with a focus on personality-driven storytelling featuring Mexican superstar Chicharito alongside the local community champions in each market. We aligned the program to PepsiCo's UEFA sponsorship, providing increased visibiliy for the program up against the high-profile knockout rounds of the Champions League. And we triangulated distinct opportunities for PepsiCo's DEl team and their leading brands to put their own stamp on the program, with unique activations ranging from ticket giveaway programs to career mentorship opportunities led by PepsiCo employees. 

The Results

The campaign got more than 300 media placements over the course of its three years, including Univision, Paramount +, Sports Illustrated, Adweek, the AP, and many more, totaling more than 2 billion earned media impressions over the course of the campaign.

In-Market Activation

The success of the program led to a renewal through a new project: Lay’s Replay, which uses recycled potato chip bags to create safe spaces to play for kids in underserved communities across the world. We brought a bespoke, branded activation to Santa Ana, California with legends Chicharito and Mia Hamm, complete with food, music, pickup games, and more. And we brought a local community soccer program into the fold to make sure that this was more than a stunt –– it’d be a place to play for years to come.

With a holistic content, PR and earned media plan included, we brought the story of what PepsiCo is doing in the community to millions more to cap off the project.