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How PepsiCo uses Social Listening for Ad Campaigns

Social listening may sound like a tough task, especially if you’re planning on doing it manually.  But if you strategize right and use the right tools to automate it, this process can be a cakewalk. Social listening is one of the most discussed trends today and that’s for good reason. Let’s say, a customer Tweets about how exceptional your customer service is, Or, a news channel report covers the excellent metrics that your brand displayed the last quarter. Well! Wouldn’t it be exciting to access all such mentions and data in real-time? That’s where social media listening can help you. Don’t believe us? See how PepsiCo uses social listening for ad campaigns.

How Pepsi uses Social Listening for Ad Campaigns

A Look into How PepsiCo uses Social listening for Ad campaigns 

Who hasn’t heard of the American multinational giant PepsiCo Inc.? PepsiCo usually launches highly successful marketing campaigns leveraging its enormous social media presence. However, things went wrong even for PepsiCo. All those who weren’t living under a rock would have heard of PepsiCo’s ad campaign with Kendall Jenner. The ad campaign gained a lot of attention but, it did more harm than good. This ad campaign did not sit well with critics and they all took to social media to revile it. 

Thankfully for PepsiCo, they could control the damage within 24 hours as they implement several social media listening techniques to boost their conversions and resolve any negative PR. Pepsi has a robust social media strategy, and they use sentiment analysis through social listening. 

As per reports from Business Insider, within thirty years of its inception, the PepsiCo brand has grown exponentially. A part of this massive success can be attributed to their out-of-the-box concepts for marketing campaigns. So what led to this success story? The answer lies in the story of how well PepsiCo has been able to listen to its customers. Pepsico has been strictly following consumer insights and using social listening for their ad campaigns. Here’s a little more on the exact technique they use.

Understanding the Consumer

Todd Kaplan, PepsiCo’s Vice-President of Marketing, said social listening made it possible for them to really understand their consumers. And that is exactly what has helped them navigate through the crazy year 2020. His team used a mechanism which they termed “culture in, brand out”. They would monitor major cultural shifts and create marketing moments around it. 

Quicker Turnover

Marketing plans for the year 2020 were not solid owing to the pandemic and the lockdown. Pepsi’s marketing team usually follows a creative process that takes months. The campaigns start with insights, from the brief to the actual creative process. Pepsi also follows a very formal approach when working with partners. 

The new approach saw it all change. For the new campaigns, multiple agencies worked together in real-time. This led to a quicker turn-around.

Consumer Engagement

Pepsi also went big on connecting with consumers and engagement. In an attempt to create campaigns more quickly, Pepsi recreated a 1997 track. With this, they hoped to tap into the undercurrent of nostalgia that was evident in the conversations during the lockdown. 

The campaign appealed to many people and generated a ton of organic chatter. After the success of this campaign, Pepsi relied heavily on a similar strategy and brought performances to fans. It also included a performance by Lady Gaga for charity. 

The way PepsiCo’s team handled marketing issues during the pandemic goes to reinforce the fact that social listening is a really powerful tool. You need to be using the right tools and in the right way to realize the full benefit. 

Inspiring Examples of Social Media Listening Campaigns

The growing buzz around social media listening and monitoring would make some of you wonder if companies really implement these tools. Truth be told, in this day and age, social media has a stronghold in the lives of people. For any brand to make a mark, social media marketing becomes a must. 90% of marketers say social media is important to their business.

Social media listening can be an invaluable asset for social media marketers. In most of the previous blogs, we’ve emphasized the importance of social media listening.

Inspiring Examples of Social Media Listening Campaigns

If you still doubt the power of this tool, here are some examples from the corporate world. These companies tapped into social media to listen to the chatter and learn from the insights.

Social Media Listening informs Arby’s Ad Campaigns

For  50 years or more, Arby’s was known for its epic sandwiches. After engaging in a regular social listening session to learn what their customers think about the brand, Arby’s realized that their sauce is equally popular too. Almost about one-third of all the social media comments were about Arby’s sauce and how much people feared running out of it.

Arby’s decided to tap into this very sentiment and start selling their sauces by the bottle with an ad campaign designed around it. They termed this “nightmare scenario” ad campaign – “The Saucepocalypse”. And, the posters were designed drawing inspiration from the famous old apocalypse movies.

The benefits of social listening did not stop here for Arby’s. Next, in an attempt to engage with their audience, Arby’s asked their customers to share their worst sauce-less meal stories. The marketing team saw an opportunity for advertising in this. They picked these stories up and “The Saucepocalypse” posters were based on them. They posted these posters all over social media and on billboards in the towns from where the stories had come in. Soon, the ad campaign was a social media rage. Nearly 50000 bottles of sauces were sold.

Arby's Saucepocalypse

Social Media Listening for Customer Insights and Engagement by Hilton

Almost every hour, there’s a tweet mentioning Hilton Hotels. For a brand of Hilton’s stature, it is to be expected that most of their client base would be tech savvy. And most of them turn to social media to list their experiences and sentiments. To maintain quality service, it is essential for the brand to listen to its customers.

Hilton Hotels Social ListeningOn an average, Hilton hotels receive over 1.5 thousand tweets every day and needless to say, Hilton does monitor these mentions assiduously. Hilton tweets/responds to an average of 3.3 posts in an hour. There is a response team (guest service center) collaborating with the call center team. Hilton monitors all the social media handles for its brand as well as hotels. The effort is visible in the constant engagement threads over twitter and other sites.

There have been many instances of happy customers sharing a picture of their cozy room, or how Hilton hotels made their birthday special. Thanks to the use of social listening, Hilton has been doing that efficiently.

However, there are times when customers do put up negative comments too. Many Hilton hotels host important celebrity figures, negative reviews could take a toll on their firm. A constant eye on their social accounts has aided Hilton’s team to avoid major crisis moments and engage with the customers quickly to assist them.

Listening for Market Research by MoneyGram

Leading money transfer company – MoneyGram used social listening to test and deep dive into the study of their industry, product, and competitors. The analysts at MoneyGram were continually monitoring the chatter online to gather a sense of their share of voice on a daily basis. The insights helped them see any shifts in the market and then plan their future strategies accordingly.

Moneygram Max's World AdventuresThe analysis of the existent competition and their own share of voice helped them to critically judge the success of their “Max’s World Adventure” campaign. Their playful and fun campaign targeted at children gathered quite some attention, and the company noticed a jump in their share of voice that very week. MoneyGram has been diligent with their social listening efforts post the campaign too, gathering deeper insights in real-time.

By now, you must have realized that a vigilant eye on social media really boosted the success of the above-mentioned companies. If you feel inspired, try testing the waters using the free plans many social media listening tools provide. Maybe next time, it would be your brand’s story featured here.