Social Listening to Pepsi

       Pepsi is a popular brand of soda. But is it the most popular? According to nbcnews.com, Pepsi is most often ranked as second place in brands of soda. Pepsi also comes in third behind Coca Cola and Diet Coke in soda flavors. Pepsi was created in 1898. Fun fact, Coca Cola actually came out first in 1886. This was interesting because my family loves soda. As kids we saw our parents drink soda rather than coffee or alcohol. My dad started to love of soda. In college, he would go to the Superette on Monroe to get a soda. At this time, he was drinking Pepsi. As the years have gone on, we are now a family who drink Diet Coke. In my mind I though that Pepsi came out first, but it didn’t. These soda brands came out over 135 years ago, meaning it was out way before my parents were even born. I guess its really interesting on how one brand could have a better marketing skill then the other.

The pictures above show my two brothers and I love of soda and 7-Eleven.

       Pepsi’s mission statement is “create more smiles with every sip and every bite” (Pepsico). They also have two statements for their consumers and customers. “For our consumers: by creating joyful moments through our delicious and nourishing products and unique brand experiences. For our customers: By being the best possible partner, driving game-changing innovation, and delivering a level of growth unmatched in our industry” (Pepsico).

       Back in April 2017, Kendall Jenner appeared in a Pepsi commercial. This commercial made big headlines. The reason it made big headlines is because the commercial was all about the Black Lives Matter movement supported by a white supermodel. In the commercial, it shows Jenner doing a photo shoot, from the distance she sees a group forming on the street. She then decides to join the group which is a street protest. They solve the protest by handing the police a can of Pepsi.

Picture from: Yahr

       A lot of people were angry about this decision. There are to many tweets to show it. Pepsi decided to pull the commercial. Although most of the tweets were angry, there were a handful of good ones. Here are two examples of how some of the tweets were nice. The basis of the tweet was that they didn’t think anything was bad about the commercial.

       Here is one of my favorite tweets I found. It really encompasses what happened in the video.

        I have mixed feelings about this commercial. I get why they choose this kind of topic, but it wasn’t a great decision. Every commercial, TV show or movie tries to be inclusive. We what inclusivity in race, gender, relationship status and everything in between. Except this wasn’t the type of inclusivity the audience wanted. Inclusivity should be positive, show multiple people, this was a negative thing happening in African American’s lives. Sure, all different kinds of race were represented in the protest, but it just wasn’t a good decision made. Pepsi pulled the commercial and tweeted this statement.

        Everyone makes mistakes. I personally always see both sides to a decision. With these kinds of mistakes, I often question how it made it so far without someone saying, “maybe we should take this commercial in a different direction”. This is especially the case for when creating something for a high production company. I’m sure it took a lot of hoops to make it to releasing the commercial, so why and how did this get approved. As a brand manager, I would hope I wouldn’t make this same mistake. In response to the customers I would for sure, apologize, give reason why I thought it was okay and then pull the commercial. This is similar to what Pepsi did, but it was an extra apology I would have done.

When you have the chance to grab a soda, which soda will you grab, Pepsi or another brand?

Works Cited

Hartlaub, Peter. “Sweet! America's Top 10 Brands of Soda.” NBCNews.com, NBCUniversal           News Group,25 Mar. 2011, www.nbcnews.com/id/42255151/ns/business-     

       us_business/t/sweet-americas-top-brands-soda/#.XjN722hKjIU.

“Mission and Vision.” PepsiCo, Inc. Official Website, www.pepsico.com/about/mission-and-

       vision.

Yahr, Emily. “Kendall Jenner Cries over Pepsi Ad Backlash in 'Keeping Up With the  

       Kardashians'Premiere.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 26 Feb. 

       2018, www.washingtonpost.com/news/arts-and-

       entertainment/wp/2017/10/01/kendall-jenner-cries-over-pepsi-ad-backlash-in-

       keeping-up-with-the-kardashians-premiere/.

Marketing in the News- Social Media Marketing

Social media is constantly in the palm of our hands. You may be thinking, well we can’t control social media like what that phrase means, but I'm thinking of it as a literal phrase. We, college students, teenagers and everyone else who has a smart phone are all constantly having our phones on us. Whether we are working, at school, eating, on the toilet or even having an in-person conversation. Which you shouldn't be doing! You should be in the present and talk will your friend to their face, not talk to them while you are scrolling through Instagram. My life currently involves me to be on social media constantly. If you were to look me up, you would see my pages should be private. I am a private person, I don't think everyone needs to know what is going on in my life, but what I will say is that even if you friend request me and I accept, you will see I never post. I just don’t. I don’t need the likes, or the encouragement or as some always comes, negativity. Now you may be thinking, she said that her life surrounding social media, well yes. I live in a house of fifty girls. We must stay connected somehow. We have a private group on Facebook to keep everyone updated on announcements and things that are happening in the house. This article is all about social media marketing. At this point of social media, the main attraction is to be an influencer. What does that mean? What is an influencer? An influencer is “a user on social media who has established credibility in a specific industry. A social media influencer has access to a large audience and can persuade others by virtue of their authenticity and reach” (Pixlee). They become famous and lots of companies what to use them for their marketing. This starts to be a great resource for companies to market. With everyone on social media, they can market their brand and customers can buy from the app. As the years have gone on, they have seen lots of down sides to this. This article covers “why influencer marketing needs to die in 2020 (Twomey)”.

In this article, they presented some data from Estée Lauder. According to Twomey, “Beauty giant Estée Lauder has already committed a staggering 75 percent of its advertising budget toward influencer marketing.” That's a lot of budget money used towards social media. This means that that Estée Lauder won't have that much of the budget to go towards commercials, ads and billboards. The problem is that a lot of that budget is going to waste on influencers. Some influencers buy their followers and likes. This means that Estée Lauder and many other companies are wasting their money on advertising to fake followers which doesn’t create any profit. 

            If I was the marketing manager, I wouldn’t use that much of our budget to advertise via social media influencer. As previously discussed, social media influencers buy fake followers, not all but some. From what we have learned in class is that marketing can make or break a company. Marketing will help bring in customers who then bring in the money. While I believe that social media is a great way to reach the customers, it's not the only way to do so. Estée Lauder has been around for approximately 74 years. Although they have done different marketing before you have to keep up with the trend and customers. Social media marketing was one of them. 

Reading this article and learning what we have in class has been eye opening. Marketing takes a lot of moving parts to succeed. I enjoyed learning more about how companies use their marketing budget. I hope to learn much more for my future business. 

Articles Mentioned in Blog Post:

Article- Written by Kevin Twomey: https://adage.com/article/opinion/opinion-dishonest-and-wasteful-practice-influencer-marketing/2227541?CSAuthResp=1%3A%3A5249873%3A0%3A24%3Asuccess%3A76B9C6805BC942B28561B1DDE9A9C461 

Social Media Influencer Definition: https://www.pixlee.com/definitions/definition-social-media-influencer 

Company Mentioned: https://www.esteelauder.com/

Hi blogging world! Here is my official debut on this platform. My name is Melissa Larson and I am a 19-year-old girl that has lived in Corvallis her whole life. After graduating high school, the next step for me was college. When deciding on where I would attend college, there wasn’t much thought involved; I decided to not even leave town to go to college! I am a sophomore attending Linn-Benton Community College but next fall I will be transferring to Oregon State University.

As children, we all dream of what we will be when we grow up. My two choices were to either be a teacher or be a baker. And now, my dream is slowly coming true. My major is Business Entrepreneurship. In a few years, you can expect to see me running my own bakery! The plan for opening my own bakery was to get a business background rather than a culinary background. I figured it would be more useful. I’m taking this marketing class for a requirement, but also to prepare me for my future. How you market your business can make or break it. This can happen by not reaching the right audience or not reaching an audience at all. A business needs customers to succeed. Some may argue that success is defined by your financial status. I would argue that it is defined by whether you can keep your business afloat. Marketing is interesting; some ideas work for certain companies but for others, it simply does not. What I hope to learn from this course is the best marketing plan for my business and how to apply the material to both professional and personal aspects of my life.

I love baking; I’ve been baking with my mom ever since I was a little girl. In fourth grade, I began baking my own specialty cupcakes. Since then, I’ve been baking for classes, friends and family. On average per term, I can easily bake two hundred cupcakes. I am able to do this because of where I live; in an off-campus house with fifty other girls. It is a community that I love, one that can help people get through college and life itself. This community that I live in is called House of Charis. House of Charis is a home to women of Christ. House of Charis is a part of a bigger Christian community among the Corvallis area, the other houses include: Antioch, Courtyard and Varsity House. When I bake, I bake for my house and one of the other Christian houses. With about fifty residents in each house, I bake about a hundred cupcakes. I either bake for the houses twice a term or I bake for other friends. Recently, my sister-in-law has employed me to bake both cupcakes and cakes for baby showers and birthday parties. Last spring term, I baked approximately four hundred cupcakes in one day for all the Christian co-ops. Not only do I love to give others my baked goods, but I love serving them with treats. I found that it was helpful for students to get through finals before summer vacation. In my free time, you can find me baking, hanging out at House of Charis with friends, crafting, enjoying time with family or at church.

I can’t wait to see what I learn in this class! I love being creative in both my baking and with sign creations. Having a creative thumb brings me joy. I’m excited to pursue my creative aspects and the knowledge I attain from this course. I plan to use these tools together and apply them to my future bakery. I hope everyone has a great week, thanks for getting to know me a little better.