Pepsi’s fashionable fusion sends pulses racing

The brand recruited Australian singer, models and designers to cause a stir around the cola brand.

G Flip, James Parr and Samantha Harris join Pepsi for unveiling of the Pepsi Pulse Collection, championing the next generation of Australian designers

Cola brand Pepsi, Australian singer/songwriter G Flip, model Samantha Harris and emerging fashion designer Jackson Cowden caused quite the stir in Sydney as Pepsi began to roll out its newly ­redesigned brand last Wednesday.

An ordinary campaign this was not. On Sydney’s harbour edge, guests gathered to see the designs of 22-year-old Cowden, a “digital fashion artist”, who was approached to work with Pepsi for the launch and creation of the garments, titled the Pepsi Pulse ­Collection.

G Flip performed a set of their hit songs, including Cruel Summer and Be Your Man, while Samantha Harris modelled one of Cowden’s 10 designs created for the show.

It was the first initiative to come from Pepsi in the Australian market to feature the brand’s global redesign, which marked the evolution of its previous logo and visual identity for the first time in 15 years. It comes as the Pepsi brand stands on solid footing in the mature cola category in Australia. Brand affinity is up six percentage points on the previous year. And, for the first time in years, Pepsi has seen growth in household penetration, which increased by two per cent from February 2023 to February this year.

Last week’s event offers a glimpse into how Pepsi is behaving and investing in positioning itself in Australia with its new identity, by way of tapping into culture, and in this case, creating a moment of its own.

James Parr and Samantha Harris and models storm the runway as part of Pepsi Pulse Collection unveil, a digital and physical fashion, in partnership with Jackson Cowden

For this activation, Pepsi engaged the public relations arm of Special, a creative group with offices in Australia, New Zealand, the US and UK.

Special PR’s managing director Alex Bryant said: “The whole premise of the campaign was really about looking at those industries or those opportunities where there is an opportunity for reinvention, or looking at things in a different way and showing up in a different way.

“And that’s how we landed on doing something in the fashion space.”

PepsiCo Australia chief marketing officer ANZ snacks and beverages, Vandita Pandey, said last week’s event underscored Pepsi’s broader goal to imbue the new brand identity with meaning, beyond being a cola product.

This meant cultivating emotional connections with consumers that influenced how they felt about the brand, for example.

This is not a new strategy for Pepsi, which has a longstanding reputation as a “culture” brand.

Ms Pandey explained the significance of the new visual identity to the business: “We’re actually treating this as the next generation, or the next era of growth for PepsiCo, and for Pepsi through that.”

It also spotlights one of Pepsi’s marketing cornerstones as a company that keeps its eye on the long term future.

“We strongly believe, as an organisation, in building long-term equity,” Ms Pandey said. “Long-term equity leads to long-term, sustainable growth, and that comes through driving distinction within the portfolio of brands.

“And that’s what a lot of this is all about. We’ve got to transcend, to not just grow the category, but to grow and accelerate the category through the brand in a bigger way.”

She said the Pepsi Pulse Collection was an example of how the brand was driving distinction in the market, which took global brand cues but localised them in a way that connected with consumers in Australia. “We get to leverage a passion point that we know consumers care about,” Ms Pandey said. “And it’s critical to do it through an experience. Fashion and music are two big passion points that the brand has actually had a heritage in historically.”