Pepsi introduces returnable bottles

PEPSI decided to reintroduce recyclable PET bottles into the market. It was partially to return to sustainable practices and of course would need to be profitable.

Our challenge was to introduce this idea to consumers and stimulate them to buy returnables. Plus educate them on how the system would work.

No more waste and get money back on your returns.

It sounds simple but delivering a campaign to millions of people had to be simple and clear.

It had to resonate with consumers and establish new ways of behaving.

Our challenge was to communicate this in an interesting way and deliver profits to PEPSI, and keep them coming while getting consumers to ‘buy in’ to the new system.

Brainstorming like mad, tossing out hundreds of ideas we eventually chose the oddest non-local utterly different idea and presented it.

After all what could you think of that returns, is an awesome key visual, can be used in demos, TVC, promotions and events and has an interest factor simply because it is so dramatically different?

A boomerang.

To be honest it was crazy, but insanely effective. The fact that it was so unusual and from a different culture had everyones attention.

So we used the boomerang as a key visual and built a giant campaign around it.

It went everywhere, every single media we had available.

OMG it worked.

We beat Coca Colas sales by 25% in the first quarter and it continued all year