Pepsi the Witch Doctor?

I actually feel badly about making Pepsi my first post since I am a true addict of the stuff -- the diet stuff, that is.

Back in the Cave Man days when Pepsi was trying its best to gain market share from Coca Cola, it positioned itself as the "value" brand by selling at half the price of Coca Cola. In very short order, all of the June Cleavers in America were furtively pouring Pepsi in the kitchen, hiding the bottles and presenting the product to their guests as the higher-end Coca Cola. Hmmm...slightly reminiscent of the whole Smirnoff/Absolut wars of the 90's.

Their strategy worked, they gained market share and went international. Like many brands, they decided to keep to keep the same messaging and branding for all of the countries they were marketing to. Obviously, they were pretty new at the game.

It was the height of "The Pepsi Generation" with a tagline "Come Alive with Pepsi." Unfortunately, somewhere over in Asia, there was a bit of a problem with the translation, and Pepsi wound up telling its consumers over there that Pepsi would "bring their ancestors alive" or "come alive out of the grave".

Maybe it was a true blunder, maybe it was sheer genius.

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