The lost Pepsi opportunity from "............ the Future"

When the future seems dark and uncertain, a look at the past can help find a light inside the dark present.

Electric cars were invented in the 1881 but didnt't become full scale cars until the early 2000, jeans has been worn by newly arrived workers in the US in the early 1950 as a protective garnment. And what about Padel phenomenon that exploded in the Covid perdiod but it s been plaied since 1960 in Mexico.

What do these three vintage stories have in common? The right time in the right place.

The same could be said for Pepsi,

Or almost....

"Back to the future" was a global thunder back in the 80s, grossed nearly 1.3 billion dollars in the big screen worldwide and its sequel, "Back to the Future II", was an opportunity for big brand like Nike, JVC and other brands to populate the big screen of all Cinema in the world.

And Pepsi partecipated too in this battle of product design showcase with their Pepsi Perfect, a vitamin-enriched variety of Pepsi cola sold in the equally fictional 2015 throwback cafe "Cafe 80s". So Pepsi saw an opportunity but had to wait, for 25 years to make the right move, in the right time. They had planty of time to find themself prepared for this moment, the precise moment when Marty McFly took a sip of their Pepsi Perfect.

21 October 2015

So what went wrong?

Marketing is about taking advantage of situations and amplifying an existing message to benefit your goals. Then Pepsi decided to launch two runs of 6.500 bottles offered on Amazon, Walmart and through Official Pepsi website on October 21st and Novemebr 3rd 2015.

Just 13,000 bottles, Just in USA.

Fans took to social media and turned the innocent promotional campaign in a social media nightmare, with the two launches considered a make-good by PepsiCO attemting to salvage any goodwill left by the online community.

Papsi could certainly have used this opportunity to balance the gap with Coca Cola that is still for some unbridgeable, or at least lay the fundations in past and future generation.

Hardcore fans aside, kids of all ages may have picked up a bottle of Pepsi Perfect as a keepsake and shared their love for the product over social media or thrugh word of mounth to friends and family.

Apart from producing more than the measly 13k bottles and extending production outside the US, Pepsi could have exploited the Halloween period and tried to give away Martin McFly costumes for example.

Just saying Doc!