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Home » Media » In the News » Pepsi looks to get down with the online whiz-kids - The Times

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Pepsi looks to get down with the online whiz-kids - The Times

Tuesday, October 04, 2011

Ten start-ups have been handed the task of inventing new sales techniques
Peter Stiff
October 4 2011 12:01AM

The British division of PepsiCo is teaming up with ten European technology start-ups to help it to find new ways to advertise and sell its brands online.

Each of the fledgeling businesses, eight of which are British, will be linked to the American group’s brands, such as Walkers crisps and Tropicana juice, to work on marketing and e-commerce projects over the next year.

The move, which mirrors an initiative in the United States last year, is designed to help PepsiCo to learn more about the digital world, an increasingly important way to reach consumers who are spending more time and money online.

Ian Ellington, general manager of Walkers Crisps, said: “Social media is growing in importance and I think there will be a strong commercial benefit for us ultimately. I’d be surprised if all ten work, but I’m confident there’s a handful that will become part of our marketing toolkit.”

The start-ups, which were picked from 130 applicants and which will be announced this week, include Slingshot, which allows users to add items to their online shopping baskets by scanning codes from advertising on their mobile phones.

Another, TV Tak, allows consumers to point their mobile phone at the television and get branded information about the programmes, potentially making sponsoring TV more valuable.

The ten start-ups will each receive £10,000, gain experience from working with PepsiCo and will be mentored by the venture capital group Highland Capital Partners, an early investor in the likes of Ask Jeeves and Lycos.

Consumer goods groups such as Pepsi are typically among the world’s biggest spenders on advertising and increasingly are shifting their focus towards the internet, rather than television and newspapers.

Last year Pepsi launched Mountain Dew in Britain solely through digital media and the business also used the internet to encourage consumers to invent their own crisp flavour in the Walkers “Do Us a Flavour” campaign.