Pepsi-Brisk Case Study

Pepsi-Lipton Brisk

1. Should Brisk be advertised on primetime TV or with viral ads in the months following the Super Bowl ad? What are the benefits of each media? 

Benefits and Drawback of Advertising on Prime-time TV

Advertising on prime time TV shows will allow Brisk to reach out to a larger and broader target audience as average consumers spend close to 31% of their time on TV. Adding on, TV is a form of mass media platform where it can deliver a large number of advertisement impression and yet remain cost effective.

On the other hand, it was reported that 50% of the viewers reported skipping through most of the ads while watching TV programs. This leads to the question of whether the advertisement message was successfully delivered to the target audiences.  

Benefits and Drawback of using Viral Advertisements

Viral advertisement allows Brisk to effectively reach out to the millennial as 59% of the millennial spend their time on the Internet. If an advertisement is successfully being viral, it is able to reach out to more target audience than a TV advertisement at a faction of the cost. Adding on, viral advertisements have found to be able to offer a higher level of consumer engagement through positive word-of-mouth buzz.

On the other hand, the failure rate of viral advertisement is very high with only 3% of YouTube video capturing more than 25,000 views and it hard to predict what are the elements that makes a viral advertisement successful.

Prioritization

Brisk’s choice of media following the Super Bowl ad is crucial because getting the most number of impressions is not the only goal. Brisk wants to engage it targets audience and have an online presence and build up a fan base. Given Mekanism previous proven track record and expertise in producing and promoting viral advisement, viral advisement is the media that Brisk should adopt to meet it campaign objective.

1. Which of the four ad concepts should Mary Barnard and Marisol Tamaro choose? What are the elements that should be present in these ads to maximize their chance of success? 

Key Message of Proposed Concepts

1. “That’s Brisk, Baby” – Rebirth: The first concept was a direct update of Brisk’s popular 1990 campaigns. The ads would be shot in black-and-white with only the Brisk’s bottle appearing in color. This helps to create a contrast and allow consumer to focus more on the product.   Popular celebrities will be featured so that target will be able to better relate to the advertisement.

1. The Brisk Brothers: The second concept focus more on the product where Brisk flavors tea will be represented by six different claymation characters in the form of Brisk brothers, who each has their own unique personality. The ads also hope to create more interaction with target audience through the Brisk brother by responding to user tweets.

1. Creative Characters: The third concept focus more on product where different characters will be seen corresponding to a different flavor of Brisk. Representation of Brisk flavors by puppet versions of characters could leave a vivid and interesting impression on viewers’ mind.

1. “Now That’s Brisk”: The focus of the advertisement is to portrait “Brisk” personality of being quick, energetic and to the point. The ads also include a “Brisk” version of hangover where the millennial can easily relate. Adding on, the campaign hope to engage the target audience through an interactive website where they can create their own puppets and “Briskify” the things happening around them.  

Recommendation

Through a focus group with millennial males, Mekanism found out that the key elements to maximize their chance of success among the millennial males are: Entertainment, Humor and Interactivity.  All four concepts above do fulfill the key element to success. However, The Brisk Brother and Creative Characters concept focus more on the product itself, which is not inline with Brisk primary and long goal to have a strong online presence and building up a fan base. “That’s Brisk, Baby” – Rebirth lacks of a push factor in terms of social interaction and hence might not be effective in meeting the objective. “Now That’s Brisk” is the concept that Brisk should be adopting, it incorporated the key elements of entertainment, humor and interaction through the use of hangover storyline, Claymation version popular celebrities and interactive website that target audience can have a hands on experience.

1. What is the cost of viral advertising (in terms of CPM)? How does it compare to primetime TV? 

Viral Advertising CPM

According to the case, Mekanism estimate that the viral marketing campaign will create a total of 12.5 million impressions and the whole campaign will cost $300,000 (page10). From this two given figure, we calculated that the viral marketing CPM will be $24 (cost of campaign divided by the no of Impressions)

Primetime TV CPM

Primetime CPM was at an all-time high of $23 (page 5).

Comparison

Looking from the quantitative point of view, Viral Advertising CPM and Primetime CPM are pretty close at $24 and $23 respectively. However, both media have their risks and rewards and which media is able to meaningfully engaged the target audience is another question. Studies have found that 50% of the viewers skipped ads while watching TV as compare to 29% of the viewers that skipped online video ads (page 6). With this information, we can factor in the defection rate to generate a new CPM.