Pepsi promotion to rerun after winner exposed as agency staffer
Pepsi is to restage an online competition organised as part of the marketing campaign to launch its new design, after a follower of the brand on Twitter revealed that a winner works for one of the agencies involved in the campaign.
The blunder has been blamed on “an error in paperwork”.
The scavenger hunt-style promotion gives followers of PepsiAustralia on Twitter a series of clues to their location in cities across Australia. The first person to get there and hit a ‘Refresh’ button held by a Pepsi representative wins one of 101 Pepsi Refresh EFTPOS cards loaded with $250.
The Hit Refresh campaign includes outdoor advertising created by Clemenger BBDO, with TV ads produced by MTV. The social media component of the campaign, which launched on January 4, is being handled by Amnesia Razorfish, while the PR and activation of the hunt is being handled by Tango Communications.
Twitpic of Adelaide winner Amy Weston
Yesterday @PepsiAustralia posted a TwitPic of one of its $250 Adelaide winners, naming her as Amy Weston.
But Adelaide’s Magnus Toot tweeted back asking: “@pepsiaustralia Does Amy still work at Clemenger in Adelaide? Isn’t she therefore ineligible to win?”
A receptionist at Clemenger BBDO Adelaide told Mumbrella that Weston is art director although she was unavailable to come to the phone.
On the Hit Refresh website, the terms and conditions of the competition state:
If you work for us, sorry but you cant win! Directors, management, employees, officers and contractors (and their immediate families) of PepsiCo, Schweppes Australia or of the agencies or companies associated with this promotion are ineligible. “Immediate families” means spouse, parent, guardian, natural or adopted child, and sibling (whether natural or adopted by a parent), whether or not they live in the same household as the director, manager, employee, officer or contractor.”
A few minutes after Mumbrella called Tango Communications, yesterday’s tweet announcing Weston as the winner was deleted and the photograph of her was also pulled down.
A spokesman for Tango told Mumbrella that Weston’s prize has been withdrawn, and an extra competition would be run in Adelaide. She said:
“It was brought to our attention on Twitter, where a question came up about a person who worked at Clemenger. We looked into it overnight and we found out that indeed the person to hit the ‘Refresh’ button did work at Clemenger and despite being ineligible, was awarded as the winner due to an error in the paperwork. We are now conducting another hunt in Adelaide. Clemenger has no involvement in the hunt as they did the outdoor creative. This is a case of human error.”
The Twitter hunt follows a similar successful social media-led promotion launched by Levi’s last year, where hundreds of pairs of the jeans brand were ‘released’ on to the streets of Australia and New Zealand, worn by Levi’s representatives.
Devised by Host and sister PR agency One Green Bean, Twitter was used to release ‘tip offs’ as to the whereabouts of the jeans. Followers could then instantly win a pair of Levi’s by asking the wearer “Are those Levi’s?”. If correctly challenged the Levi’s clad reps had to drop their pants and hand over the jeans on the spot. The campaign was a finalist in the social media campaign category of the Mumbrella Readers Choice Awards.
Tim Burrowes founded Mumbrella in 2008. He worked on Mumbrella until 2021. At various points he was editor, content director and editor-at-large. He returned to Mumbrella as Publisher in January 2025
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Mistakes happen, corrective action was taken, case closed.
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sorry, but i’m not “a receptionist” i’m “the receptionist” at clems in Adelaide.
thx,
Jose
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I can’t help but feel betrayed by the Pepsi corporation!
First they pull this new logo bullsh*t!
AND NOW THIS!!!
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Next person to win- Darren McMullen.
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are you kidding me? C’mon mUmbrella. Promotion to re-run? this isnt news. its 1 $250 prize being reallocated less than a day after it was issued incorrectly. the headline makes it sound like a huge deal. I’m with Stuallrt. Case closed.
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What this also doesnt mention is that the campaign was run out of Sydney. Adelaide had nothing to do with it.
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Yawn 1 of 1 million hunts gets re run 😉 Happy Adelaide gets another go!!
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Slow news day?
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The fix is in. There is clearly a co-ordinated posting of comments above to attempt to downplay the importance of the story.
It is intriguing that a staffer would have entered the competition with knowledge of the applicable rules.
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I think this was all just an honest mistake.
Problem has been fixed in a timely manner, get over it people!
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@ Michael – You are a sorry sack of existence if you go to the effort to read them all, then deduce that it is co-ordinated posting, then ACTUALLY bother to write it.
Try finding a thing called ‘purpose’, it wont harm you.
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I bet Pepsi (even with their rubbish new logo) are loving the free publicity of this rather lame turn of events.
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@Applemac I’m alive to the possibility of a concerted strategy of damage control. I might be wrong but it wouldn’t be the first time. If that is happening it is worth noting.
I refuse to play agency sycophant and I repeat my question : Given the well established conditions of the competition, why did she enter ?
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Agreed with Jamoe (8)
Yet still, doesn’t it just seem like this campaign doesn’t have the authenticity that made ispylevis so compelling?
@Michael, It’s a pretty big leap to assume a conspiracy, when its far more likely someone that was part of a PARTNERING agency, not an agency running the hunt, would have wanted to get involved not realising she was ineligible. A mistake, but an honest one and not a big one really.
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Who cares – it got corrected.
The tragedy of this article is yet another reference to the ispy levis campaign. IMO the most over-rated social campaign of 2009. Look at their follower count: just over 2000 manufactured (anyone notice the inflated following count) followers… most of which is made up of social media doucebags and not the target market.
Pepsi, however, seem to have done a significantly better job at engaging with their target with over 4300 facebook fans in the campaigns short life … over double what levis achieved in the entire campaign.
Rant over. Nice work Pepsi.
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i’m with mandy re ispy levis. biggest biz dev scam of 2009
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I’m shocked Clems in Adelaide only has one receptionist – what happens at lunch?
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I’ve not heard anything about this half backed promotion … maybe it’s because like the majority of the population with an IQ above about 95….i’m not a twit……er…reh…er er er.
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who the heck knew that this was a prom – using their half assed “talent” ot looked like more of a series of ads for a new tv show, not a competition? BIG fail on the agencies behlaf for pepsi… worst pepsi campaign EVER!
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And when she needs to go to the toilet?
Or run out to get herself a free pair of Levi’s having deduced the clues?
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PS. With no connection to any involved party… looks to me like a simple, genuine mistake.
Slow news day, indeed.
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every time I read these threads on mumbrella I’m ashamed to be working in the industry. Much on today guys? get over it?
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Must be a slow news day.
While on the topic, I’d like to say, as a Graphic designer myself, that the new Pepsi logo is a complete fail. FAIL PEPSI. FAIL. Looks like a reverse nike tick in a circle.
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Oh yeah, Erin McNaught in the Print ad campaign looks like a weird dolled-up mannequin. Who knew her crap acting skills (refer: Neighbours) would show on a still photograph.
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Here’s a real Pepsi promo blunder that’s a little more newsworthy http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....02230.html
And this local “fizzer” from last year http://www.theage.com.au/artic.....89534.html
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Jeez Mumbrella has turned into Today Tonight, yawn over sensationalised story! Think the campaign is solid, its certainly pulled in the punters on their FB page.
Clearly their target aren’t the marketing people commenting here :p
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@ Ben you are spot on! I am not sure when Mumbrella turned into Today
Tonight, but now every second story is negative or personal critique. To
make matter worse it has become a like school yard for all the agency and
brand competitors to comment on… We all make #$@& up’s, why not celebrate
the successes instead of trying to over sensationalise the mundane and make story’s
from nothing… Today Tonight are the Ambulance chasers…. maybe Mumbrella
are becoming the UV chasers….
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Hmm,
A couple of points to make.
First, Twitter and other social media changes the nature of these promotions. The lesson, again and again, is if you don’t keep to the exact rules, you’ll get crowd sourcing will find you out. This is just the latest example. There’s a lesson to be learned there.
And second, I’m witnessing some unusual posting patterns on this thread. So far there are 8 or so comments along the lines of “slow news day”. Fair enough – anyone is entitled to take that view. It’s usually the kind of thing I might expect a regular commenter to say if a story hasn’t lived up to previous expectations.
But the odd thing is that none of these commenters have (by the looks of their IP addresses) ever commented on a Mumbrella story before.
It does seem slightly strange behaviour to drop by a site where you’ve never commented before to announce you don’t like the news values of a particular story. For eight people to do it on the same story looks even odder yet.
Funnily enough, although the IP addresses are different, many seem to be from the same IP provider. Company iPhones? Surely not…
(“Ben” 1.28pm, congratualtions to you in particular for the research you’ve put in for what seems to be your first post on Mumbrella, to find out about how the Facebook campaign is “pulling in the punters”. It’s not a link we provided in the story so for you to go and find that out before posting shows a lot of commitment.
Unless when you talked about “their target” you meant “our target”.)
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
.
Does anyone actually drink Pepsi?
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Is it just me or does anyone else think the new Pepsi re-branding look like they’ve scaveged around in the Pepsi warehouse and found some old faded billboards circa 1970 and re-used them…so daggy it’s not even retro.
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It seems from Tim’s post above the suspicions and concern I expressed had a proper basis.
@Apple Mac – I’m feeling vindicated.
When the agency’s receptionist is purporting to correct the story (in, I might add, a completely irrelevant way) you know something’s up.
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All i can say is if you’re a brand leave social media alone unless you have something innovative and unique to offer rather the a Facebook page for fans to follow -…as soon as agencies realise that the consumer is in control and stop trying to act cool the edgy then we might see more engaging and interesting consumer promotions.
Too many bitter and twisted agency people waiting to shoot others down at the drop of a hat. Yes Pepsi and their agencies screwed up, the promotion was lame and nothing new but maybe we need to look at the stuff we’re working on and see if it’s any different, innovative, ground breaking and relevant to the target audience before we cast the first stone!
Leave social media alone and do some proper research on your target market or maybe even have a chat to a 16-22 year old and find out for yourself and not focus so much on your retainers.
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@Mumbrella,
Surely its time to take heed of these ridiculous posts by leaving the lame stories such as this one off the site.
LIke many on this site who comment and others that I’ve discussed this site with, its reaching new lows.
As for commenting on peoples IPs in order to regain some credibility, grow up, you made your bed by allowing anon comments, lie in it. Its childs play. Perhaps Mumbrella staffers could break more valuable stories on positive industry news and spend less time looking up IPs.
To save you the time, I have quoted on 3-4 stories before, don’t work for an agency ,publisher or competitor and was once a believer that Mumbrella was the new direction…… foolish of me !
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When are Mumbrella going to run an expose titled “Desperate Mumbrella author sources blogger’s IP details to help vindicate boring, unnewsworthy article”
Seriously Tim, if you have enough spare time to look up every bloggers IP details, either spend that time writing quality, newsworthy, interesting stories; or take up a hobby.
I hear scrapbooking is fun.
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Thanks, Dibber Dobber. I note that you say you’ve commented on other posts. Not from the IP address you posted from at midnight on Friday night though.
For a ridiculous post, it’s interesting to see you taking the time to read it, read the comments and then leave one – all at the time when others might be in the pub. That seems a high level of commitment from a disinterested observer.
And Fan O’Timmy, we don’t generally bother to look at IP addresses, except when there are suspicious patterns of commenting, like this one.
Ironically, the concerted attempts to downplay the story have now propelled this into the month’s most commented section. Which means that rather than having the story drop off the home page any day now, it’ll be on there for the next month or so. Congrats on that…
Cheers,
Tim – Mumbrella
I think most people are missing the point of the story here – Pepsi has engaged several agencies to create a social media campaign (as part of a bigger marketing campaign)
The problem is, they’ve created a campaign that requires Twitter followers in every state to spot their promo staff and hit the ‘refresh’ button. What do they do if they don’t have a follower in Adelaide? They fake it so they can move on to another state.
It’s a bit of a rich call to claim that an agency staffer like an Art Director had no idea that A) Pepsi was a client of the agency they work at and B) that they thought they would be eligible to enter a promotion for said client.
Despite what many have said – this is in fact news. It’s a direct breach of promotions guidelines that explicitly state that staff for a company or it’s related companies cannot enter a promotion.
As of today, January 18, @pepsiaustralia has 609 followers. There are cats on Twitter with more followers. Of course I’ve yet to hit ‘refresh’ to see that count rise (boom tish)
Of that, there are several followers from the US – who obviously can’t take part in an Australian version of what is essentially a glorified game of hide and seek. So one has to question exactly how effective this will be. It certainly will generate buzz.
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This Pepsi story has some legs, and I’m bringing to your attention some additional examples of how they’re messing it up.
Friday: Perth teams technology wasn’t up to scratch for the competition. Did not know how to use the competition Blackberrys and software properly, and also a mobile provider used who didn’t have consistent coverage, and even the competition staff admitted that no testing had been done beforehand to check that things would work.
Sunday: The promotions company Pepsi Australia are using for the competition (In Motion Productions) don’t know how to read maps.
The following twitpic gives a clear summary of the issue:
http://twitpic.com/ygpxf
In short, their initial clue and first location was nearly a 1/2 a kilometre outside the first clue location zone as depicted on their website via Google maps. The story the Pepsi Australia ‘tweetmaster’ gave after the prize was won (within minutes of the game starting) doesn’t stack up in maths, science and maps. If they had walked for 8min before they were found, and assuming they arrived by the fastest mode of transport (car), there is no carpark within that distance inside the depicted first clue zone they could have walked from.
The walking distance possible inside the 8min period they claimed is only ~630m, based on a 2006 study which determined the average female walking speed based on a level surface. If you factored in the heat and human obstacles they would have encountered in Perth – the distance could be considerably less.
While it could be argued that the location was changed for operational reasons, there is an issue of fairness because they failed to broadcast such a location change beforehand giving potential entrants fair warning. There was a change of location with Sunday’s competition for Melbourne, and at least 30min notice was given of the location change and new start point.
Credit where credit is due, this is really a pioneering competition within the Australian brand marketing space. And while its a great idea, their poor execution has the serious potential to do more harm than good for their brand reputation.
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thanks to Twitter these competitions can be regulated by everyone 🙂
now I’m wondering whether the Perth winner was also rigged…
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I really like the new logo.
Why do some of you not like it?
Im seriously interested…
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New logo, old logo,. Its still not the real thing.
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