Company: PepsiCo
Agency: Clifford/Bratskeir PR
Timeframe: 2006
In the past few years, obesity among minority populations has reached epidemic proportion. According to the Center for Disease Control, cultural factors related to dietary
choices, physical activity and excess weight acceptance among African-Americans and Latinos appear to be playing a role in impeding weight loss efforts.
In the context of this trend, and after reviewing the health and wellness marketing programs of its industry rivals, PepsiCo broke away from the pack to create its own unique
messaging initiative, "Smart Spot Dance!" (SSD), which branded PepsiCo products with the FDA-approved Smart Spot logo and integrated dancing as a physical manifestation of the
healthy lifestyle message. Working in partnership with Clifford/Bratskeir Public Relations (CBPR), the SSD program was launched nationwide in 2006 with the goal of educating
multicultural moms about the importance of nutrition education through Smart Spot products, as well as the use of dance as a form of exercise.
Penetrating New Audiences
As with many marketing programs, picking an agency partner can spell success--or failure. "We needed a smart firm with a multicultural team who could understand how to get the
message into these communities," says Lynn Markley, VP of communications for PepsiCo. "This team is young, smart and they think about things differently. Plus, they helped us look
around the corner as far as how to raise awareness in the urban media, which had typically not been a target for us, and how to work with community leaders. That's something we
needed to do to get this program off the ground."
Research also figured very strongly in the development and execution of the SSD initiative. A survey conducted by America on the Move (AOM), in collaboration with PepsiCo,
found that people who dance actually get more than double the physical benefits compared with people who walk within the same time frame. This added further fuel to the SSD
initiative.
With a team of multicultural experts and solid research in their arsenal, the executives honed their target audience and objectives to finalize the pre-launch phase of the
campaign. Because moms are seen as gatekeepers of their family's household purchasing decisions and because of the high incidence of obesity in African-American and Latino
populations, the target audiences were African-American and Latino moms.
Early on, the team determined that the objectives for the SSD program would include the following:
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Reach more than 3,000 African-American and Latino moms via events, DVDs and surveys;
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Generate more than 50 million general market consumer media impressions, and more than 20 million urban market consumer media impressions;
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Drive traffic to the Smart Spot Web site; and,
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Make the program a sustainable venture with opportunities for moms to continue to learn about health.
Actualizing Objectives
There were several tactics used to bring the program to fruition. The first dealt with educating the media. The team worked to tell media how Smart Spot could help consumers
make small but practical changes when making product choices that fit their lifestyle and, in turn, pave the way to a healthier life. The team's approach was to conduct meetings
with food, health, parenting and lifestyle editors, detailing the Smart Spot initiative, highlighting products and introducing PepsiCo internal resources/experts.
Another tactic was launching a national Smart Spot instructional dance program with a local grassroots component. For this element, it was determined that a team of Smart Spot
experts consisting of relevant celebrities, dancers and dieticians would tour relevant local markets. For the tour, Mario Lopez of TV's Dancing with the Stars and
Extra, Tony Award-winner LaChanze (The Color Purple) and Broadway choreographer Maria Torres were selected to act as program spokespersons. All three were chosen
because they have a strong background in dance and would be able to illustrate the cultural relevance of the SSD program.
Other tactics included:
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Developing a microsite to track the SSD tour, including videos of participants dancing from each event, a celebrity blog and dance videos uploaded directly to the site
by consumers;
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Producing a bilingual dance workout DVD featuring Maria Torres and moms from the African-American and Latino communities to hand out to event participants in each market;
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Making the DVD available for download on the Web site for consumers unable to attend the events to learn the dance steps in a fun and educational manner; and,
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Producing a "dance-umentary" short film featuring real people who have started dancing their way to a healthier life.
Integrating Marketing
In addition to the PR component, marketing/advertising was also important. By working with national partner local affiliates, the team was able to identify media partners in
each market that would buy advertising to promote events. The team worked with outlets to facilitate "media breakfast" meetings with PepsiCo community affairs executives to spread
SSD message.
The PepsiCo community affairs team would be an invaluable asset when working with local organizations such as the YMCA, the National Urban League and the National Council of La
Raza, to both recruit participants to the events and to ensure that the campaign's overall message reached the appropriate target. Traveling to key local markets provided an
opportunity for PepsiCo to leverage relationships with these organizations to drive attendance and benefit from the SSD initiative. Turnkey events were produced where participants
received dance instruction and sampled Smart Spot products.
The creation of the dance-umentary was also integral to the shaping of the project. Ultimately, it became a short film that chronicled the lives of two women, one African-
American and one Latino, as they try to raise their families with a strong foundation in health, nutrition and exercise. The bilingual shorts premiered on the Smart Spot Web site
as Webisodes in October 2007. The film underscores how important and necessary the SSD program is in inciting change in the health and wellness practices in these communities.
But because the SSD program involved so many different partners and participants, hammering out the details was a major challenge. "From an elemental logistical standpoint [it
was difficult especially] when you have so many parties involved and when you're doing a program on a grassroots level," says Mike Rosen, managing director of CBPR. "We were
focused on getting as deep into the community as possible, but we had to coordinate so many schedules. We were doing events at multiple cities throughout the year. We needed to
make sure everyone's schedules worked together."
It was also important to make sure that each event would have a lasting influence on its community. For Markley, a dilemma was how to make this program sustainable.
"On a national level, it's easy to launch a campaign and move on to the next. But when you're working in the local communities, you have to deliver something sustainable," she
says. "Traditional programs aren't built like that so we had to be smart. We come in with the talent, do our event and leave, but what do we leave behind that makes an impact?"
CBPR solved this problem by coming up with the DVD. "YMCAs [where many of the events were held in local markets] typically don't have a lot of funding, so [people in those
markets] can base dance classes on those DVDs, or the moms can take them home and play it," Markley says.
Dance Dance Revolution
The results of the program were overwhelming and far-reaching. There were nearly 2,000 attendees at local market SSD events, with a distribution of more than 8,000 dance
workout DVDs. Overall, the SSD initiative collectively reached more than 11,000 consumers, a 277% increase over the goal.
Media coverage was also extensive. The SSD initiative secured more than 230 million general market consumer media impressions, a 360% increase over goal. It also secured more
than 29 million urban market consumer media impressions. From April to August 2007, average monthly visitors to the Smart Spot Web site were 6,000.
If there's anything CBPR's Mike Rosen learned while working on the SSD program, it was the importance of engaging people in local markets.
"You need to engage in each community," he says. "You need to be working with the person who's running the local Y. They really needed to be invested in the program like we
were. We spent a lot of time early on working with them and partnering with them to make it their program." PRN
CONTACTS:
Mike Rosen, [email protected], Lynn Markley, [email protected]
Many Voices, One Message
When a program involves as many people both at the local and national level as the Smart Spot Dance initiative, it's imperative that each group delivers the same message to be
effective, says Mike Rosen, managing director for Clifford/Bratskeir Public Relations.
"Message preparation is a key to success," he says. "When you have company spokespersons from PepsiCo, third-party spokespersons including our celebrity talent, our registered
dieticians, our partners from the National Urban League and YMCA, you want to make sure everyone is speaking with one voice and delivering the same message. It's not hard to
generate publicity when you have a very compelling event and the participation of relevant celebrities. But the goal isn't just to generate media coverage; it's to make a
meaningful impact and make an impression on our target, so we needed to make sure that they delivered these key SSD messages that we had developed so that it made a
difference."
Lynn Markley, communications VP of PepsiCo echoes this sentiment. "I think that's what a lot of companies miss," she says. "They'll just do the events, but they won't focus on
the messaging. I think it took us three weeks to get the messaging down. It all had to flow because we had the national partners, the talent, the dieticians and the company
spokespersons. For them to all complement each other, it was important everyone was comfortable with the message."
Recruiting Smart Celebrity Spokespeople
The PR team for the Smart Spot Dance program couldn't just pick any random public figures in the hopes that they would make the requisite splash; they had to pick the right
ones. These turned out to be TV star Mario Lopez, famed choreographer Maria Torres and Tony Award-winning performer LaChanze, according to PepsiCo's communications VP, Lynn
Markley.
"We wanted real people to resonate with the community," she explains. "We felt we did that with Mario Lopez, who was and continues to be a hot personality in the Latino and
mainstream communities, and then Maria Torres, who really carried the program. She was a real woman. She was voluptuous and not a typical skinny dance instructor. Maria resonated
with the urban communities and moms--and LaChanze is a mom. The talent has to be reflective of the target audience: They have to be genuine and believe in the message. The three
of them did. They walked the talk."