Watching several hours of football in one sitting is thirsty work. Maybe that’s why Super Bowl viewers are nearly guaranteed to see at least one soda ad in the game every year.
In recent years, though, the Super Bowl landscape has looked a little different for carbonated beverages. In 2023, Apple Music replaced Pepsi as the halftime show sponsor after a decade, and last year, prebiotic-soda brand Poppi threw its hat in the ad ring for the first time. In the broader beverage category, traditional soda brands will now also be competing with canned-water brand Liquid Death as it makes its Super Bowl debut in 2025—not to mention all those beer commercials.
For PepsiCo, which owns soda brands like Mountain Dew, Mug, and Starry, the Super Bowl is still a must, even without Pepsi sponsoring the halftime show, according to Stacy Taffet, SVP of marketing for PepsiCo Beverages North America.
“Our whole goal is to make our brands authentically connect with people at the right moments, the right times, and a moment like the Super Bowl…is also one of the only times a year people are really engaging with advertising,” Taffet told Marketing Brew. “It’s like a dream come true because people care about ads and they’re talking about brands, and that makes it a lot more effective. Even though it costs a lot, obviously an extraordinary amount, to advertise in the Super Bowl, the return is there.”
Who’s who
PepsiCo’s Super Bowl ads date back to the ’80s, spanning iconic campaigns from Cindy Crawford’s commercial for Diet Pepsi in the ’90s to the “Puppy Monkey Baby” spot for Mountain Dew in 2016 to “Michael Bublé vs Bubly” in 2019.
But not all of its brands can have the Super Bowl spotlight every year. How do PepsiCo execs choose the star of the show?
“We arm wrestle,” Taffet joked.
Actually, newer brands often get picked—at least, brands that are showing signs of growth but could use an awareness boost, as was the case with Bubly in 2019 and Starry last year, Taffet said.
“We want to know if there’s promise,” she said. “A lot of innovations don’t work, and if it’s not going to work, we certainly don’t want to spend the money at a Super Bowl.”
The PepsiCo team also considers brands with new campaigns or information to share, Taffet said. This year, the spotlight will go to Mountain Dew, whose recent rebrand played a role in the decision to give it a Super Bowl spot, according to Mark Kirkham, SVP of marketing for Pepsi and sparkling brands in North America.
Who else?
There’s likely always going to be at least one PepsiCo brand advertising in the Super Bowl broadcast, Taffet said, but the company’s namesake brand doesn’t always get broadcast treatment. Pepsi isn’t airing a TV commercial this year, and it didn’t last year, either, but the brand will still have a presence in New Orleans, reviving its Pepsi Challenge marketing campaign from 50 years ago by hosting blind taste tests of Pepsi Zero Sugar and Coke Zero Sugar starting Super Bowl weekend.
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Traditional TV ads are “always a big discussion,” but what counts most for the Pepsi brand is reinforcing its connection with football and staying involved in Super Bowl conversation, even if that’s not on TV, Jenny Danzi, senior director of marketing for Pepsi, said. She acknowledged that the beverage category is particularly competitive, especially on Super Bowl Sunday, but said she thinks this year’s campaign will stand out even without a commercial, noting Pepsi’s previous work around the game.
“I think we’ve got a lot of equity after years and years of activation,” Danzi said.
Sure enough, Pepsi is still “one of the highest recalled advertisers” associated with the Super Bowl thanks to its years as the halftime show sponsor, Pedr Howard, head of creative excellence at the market research firm Ipsos, said.
Bring it on
The increasingly crowded soft-drink and soft-drink alternative space means there are high stakes, and the competitive market, Taffet said, “makes us up our game” creatively. Beyond leveraging additional media assets like teasers, she said the game is all about turning up the emotional dial, especially with humor.
“Where sometimes we’d say a chuckle or a smile is the right response, now it really needs to be an out-loud laugh,” Taffet said. “Keeping some of those principles in mind helps as we’re evaluating creative that could be good for the rest of the year versus something that’s really going to work in that environment.”
As for the likes of Poppi and Liquid Death appearing during this year’s broadcast? Taffet welcomes the competition.
“All of the activity in the category helps the category,” she said. “Even some of these emerging competitors that are doing, I think, terrific marketing, [are] helping people reappraise soda again.”