Pepsi Beyonce-Mirrors

PepsiCo Inc. is known for its commercials featuring high-profile music artists. Beyoncé was hired on for about $50 million in a multi-year deal with the company. In this deal, Beyoncé performed in the last Super Bowl halftime show Pepsi sponsored and this commercial. Pepsi's campaign, called the "Live for Now" campaign also started as a launching pad for Beyoncé’s world tour, the "Mrs. Carter World Tour" which had an estimated 65 shows all over Europe, and North and South America. This commercial, titled "Mirrors" features Beyoncé practicing dance moves for her new song "Grown Woman." After getting a Pepsi, Beyoncé is confronted by several iconic versions of herself including those from her Crazy in Love video with Jay Z in 2003 and Single Ladies video from 2008. As Beyoncé dances with her former selves, she breaks the mirrors and awakens as if everything was a dream. The commercial ends with Beyoncé endorsing Pepsi's new slogan "Live for Now." Using a "famous-person testimonial tactic," I think this commercial was produced well and very creative. Not to mention I love Beyoncé. Sorry, I had to put that out there. I'll BEY-have now. Promise.

Humor: 1

"Mirrors" does not use humor to reach its target audience. However, this commercial is still very memorable because Beyoncé is a major artist in today's pop culture. Although only Beyoncé fans may understand all of the references to her career, I believe this commercial does a pretty good job reaching Pepsi's target audience. For this campaign, I believe PepsiCo Inc.’s target audience was females and males ages 17 to 40. Even without humor, seeing Beyoncé's growth in her career and by tying that success to Pepsi, I believe this commercial will leave a lasting image in the minds of its viewers. 

Effectiveness: 3

Brad Jakeman, president of Global Beverages Group Pepsi Co. stated, "Markets around the world have responded extremely well... She [Beyoncé] is one of the world's truly global artists; her tour is obviously going to reach many of our markets." The commercial has reached more than 11 million views on YouTube. Also, Beyoncé’s global appeal gives Pepsi the perfect platform to power this campaign. Overall, I agree with PepsiCo that this commercial has created a lot of social buzz for Beyoncé and Pepsi. However, according to WaveMetrix, only 12 percent of the viewer comments on the commercial mention Pepsi. The video comments suggest that people see this commercial as Beyoncé’s new music video rather than a promoter for Pepsi. In addition, this commercial has not necessarily been effective in generating sales. First, it cost the company 50 million dollars to hire Beyoncé not to mention the cost to produce the commercial. Second, especially in America, there has been a new health trend to steer away from soda and other sugary drinks. This could be a reason for low second quarter sales which declined from four to seven percent, which for a multi-billion dollar company like PepsiCo, is quite significant. 

Emotion: 3

Pepsi's "Mirrors" commercial is not first and foremost meant to instill emotion or promote a social cause. However, Beyoncé does promote this message "Embrace your past, but live for now." Basically, this means accept your past and who you are, but live in the moment and do not be afraid to keep growing. I believe that is an important message that anyone can understand and strive to achieve. Mainly, this commercial is meant to promote Pepsi products as well as Beyoncé as an iconic artist. 

Customer Reviews: 5

Pepsi and Beyoncé are so iconic that this commercial gets full points for customer reviews. I do not believe the ad deceived the consumer about the quality of the product. Selling nearly 900 cases of Pepsi a year, the company is a giant in the beverage industry. As an artist, Beyoncé has sold 140 solo albums not including her time with Destiny's Child. I believe the sheer popularity of this collaboration speaks enough for this commercial.

Let's BEY-honest, this collaboration was a match made in heaven from the BEY-ginning. 

Sources:
http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/music-arts/beyonce-releases-new-pepsi-ad-teases-song-grown-woman-article-1.1307543
http://jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20130610/ent/ent5.html
http://breakitwithgoodbye.tumblr.com/post/64918584875/advertising-beyonce-mirrors-pepsi-commercial
http://wave.wavemetrix.com/content/pepsi-s-beyonc-campaign-suggests-relying-social-engagement-volume-can-be-mislead-01067
http://www.hollyscoop.com/beyonce/pepsi-sales-plummet-after-beyonce-endorsement.html