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NEW YORK — Even as Advertising Week in New York welcomes more discussion tracks centered around performance marketing and commerce media, flashy brand-building ideas may still gain traction. At its annual meeting on Thursday, PepsiCo Foods will present a case study called “Groundhog Lay’s,” a Lay’s chip campaign that ran dozens of times across eight locations on a single network as part of a time-loop premise that referenced the movie “Groundhog Day.” .”
Born out of Disney, Maximum Effort, Kimmelot and OMD, this high-concept effort is the result of PepsiCo Foods’ internal marketing approach that refocuses on speed (“Groundhog Lay’s” is a routine text exchange). The CPG giant’s other recent campaigns, including the NFL’s largest-ever Tostitos, share a lean approach with quick production schedules to keep marketers from becoming overly precious.
“What we learned from ‘Groundhog Lay’s’ is that simple mechanics are easy to execute in a variety of ways,” said Chris Bellinger, who became PepsiCo Foods’ first chief creative officer last year.
At the same time, PepsiCo is trying to embrace bolder and more novel ideas. A new ad supporting Frito-Lay’s portfolio of dips establishes a “condiment committee” of ketchup, mayonnaise and other toppings, holding an emergency meeting to address products like Tostitos salsa applied to non-traditional foods.
Marketing Dive caught up with Bellinger at PepsiCo’s Design and Innovation Center in New York to discuss how his role is evolving, his oversight of PepsiCo Foods’ internal D3 agency, and plans for major events like the Super Bowl.
The following interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Marketing Dive: We first connected in the first half of the year to discuss “Groundhog Lay’s” and now we’re back here again. As you present that piece at Advertising Week, do you think that’s a calling card for what you’re trying to accomplish with PepsiCo Foods?
Chris Bellinger: I liked that you couldn’t overthink it. In our industry, sometimes you work on something for six or 12 months, and by the time it gets out into the world, you fall in love with it. It has inspired other activations we have undertaken and opened up new ways of doing production and partnerships. It forced people to feel much more comfortable with being uncomfortable, which benefited our idea. We can analyze this to death, adjust and direct it in committee as much as we want. But a small strategic strike force that can move really fast still maintains the premise of the idea.
This month marks one year since I took on the role of CCO. Why was that an important position for the company to establish now?
The nature of our world has changed in terms of content, creativity, and how consumers interact with us. Traditionally, if you’re lucky, you might run an ad once a year. Now, between social media and digital, advertising, content and culture, it is constantly and constantly evolving. The fact that a company is willing to invest in a role like this says a lot about how it views the role of creativity within marketing and its role for consumers and brands. They are inextricably linked with each other. Content can be consumed at any time, anywhere on the planet, but previously it could only be consumed in a specific place and at a specific time if I was there. What we are saying now is that there are no boundaries between content and creativity. A more focused and strategic approach is needed.
A big part of that was D3. When did the institution start and how does it relate to your function?
D3 was created by Ram Krishnan, currently CEO of Beverages in North America. It was originally a digital executive focused on short-form videos on YouTube and elsewhere. When I joined in 2018, D3 was part of the media team and had one full-time employee. My role at the time was focused on in-house teams building in-house capabilities to operate faster, cheaper and more effectively while increasing the creative IQ of the entire company. Over the past six years, we have grown into a full-service creative shop with approximately 140 employees. It’s now the heart of a food company designed to help you execute on your creativity quickly.
PepsiCo Foods Chief Creative Officer Chris Bellinger
Permission granted by Hunter Jackson/PepsiCo.
It’s different when the brand team is involved in the process instead of checking in every two weeks. This encourages them to be more creative themselves. Eventually, I became CCO and had the opportunity to collaborate with all external entities and drive the same mindset. Part of that is acting as an interpreter between the brand team and the agency team. Hopefully we can get to better ideas faster and reduce some of this vortex. I want everyone to be jealous of each other. I want one team to look at the other and ask, ‘How can they do that?’
Has the level of work handled exclusively by D3 and external partners changed at all? Is there more work that is done entirely in-house?
The rule of thumb is that no one forces anyone else to use it. Internal teams need to earn income just like external agencies. I came from the outside and hated the internal team because I thought they had an unfair advantage. Here are the cornerstones laid out when I joined: Firstly, internal teams are not dealing with external teams, and secondly, everyone has a choice. This keeps everything on a fair and level playing field. Of course, in terms of opportunity, internal teams win more business. I think it’s because the internal team has improved. However, there have also been cases where internal teams lost work to external teams when the work wasn’t done properly.
What have you focused on recently to strengthen your capabilities? As you think about how creativity is changing, what are you starting to experiment with more?
Everyone must be a creator to some degree. That’s also the team rule. You have to be able to make something. This can be anything from social media to full end-to-end production, or it can even be an idea. I believe ideas can come from anywhere. From an internal perspective, there is no single discipline that takes responsibility. Everyone has an equal say and an equal right to vote. Brand teams trust their agency partners. If they make a recommendation to you, you are paying them for that recommendation for a reason. We call it discussion, decision and delivery. No one wants to be shy. It’s easy to fall into the trap of creating something that is the lowest common denominator. It’s hard, and it still happens, but that’s what makes creativity so exciting and challenging.
When we last spoke about the Tostitos NFL campaign (with Tom Brady, Rob Gronkowski, and Julian Edelman), you talked about what to expect. What was your initial reaction? Like ‘Groundhog Lay’s’, how are you learning from it?
I think advertisers and creators in general are against our own ideas. We’ve already made all the neural connections for rationality for reasons, and even if we show them the standards, they have no idea how they got there. For Tostitos, it was “You can’t watch football without Tostitos.” It was that simple. I was able to create 6 ads in two days. This is unheard of now. For us, it was intentional to test the boundaries of absurdity we could tolerate. Because that’s not what Tostitos traditionally were.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhzT-LPZXmo
For us, simple human unlocking is about finding out what the average person can enjoy. Sometimes that’s not what the industry likes. We joke that it’s Blockbuster versus the Oscars. That’s two types of movies and two types of audiences.
I also wanted to talk about Doritos bringing back “Crash the Super Bowl.” Was there a particular insight that brought you back to that idea?
What made Doritos an icon for many people was when we put the consumer at the center of everything we do. We felt it was time to do it again and embrace a new generation of creators. The creator economy has completely changed. There is a generation in our generation that grew up creating content from the moment they first got a cell phone. Now you can shoot 4K or 8K spots with your iPhone. We’re excited to see what consumers come back with because some spots are things they’ll never get through the first presentation.
If you have a lot of legacies but haven’t had well-toned muscles in a while, are there any other strategies you might want to dust off again?
I am very interested in not reinventing the wheel. If there’s a good idea out there, there’s no reason you should have any pride in not relying on it. Let’s see if it can work again. Because there’s likely to be a whole new generation that never got a chance to participate in it. i know us often default Shiny, new and original. In fact, I think making 2.0 is much more difficult than making 1.0.
I just attended an Advertising Week panel on challenging brands. Many of them are DTC and tend to be favored by younger consumers. How much does this inform your strategy?
As a challenger brand, you just take too many swings. I hope they embrace that because I think some of our brands get caught up in big budgets and big opportunities when they should be a little more scrappy and think a little more concisely. This is where creative innovation happens. With so much content out there and so much noise, we have an obligation to consumers to give them something fun, something they’re willing to share. There is no greater compliment than texting someone and saying, “Did you see this?” It is worth its weight in gold. You can purchase likes, but not comments or shares. This is the true measure of our engagement.
