How a PR Stunt Helped a Brand Gained an Unprecedented Entry into a Saturated Nigerian Soft-drink Market.
w ritten by Ishola Ayodele (A Specialist in MESSAGE ENGINEERING) Country: Nigeria Company: Pepsi Co he Situation In the early 90s, there was a fierce competition between Pepsi and Coca-cola, each trying to undo the other by launching series of products. Consequently, the launching of new products began to make little or no impact on the market. Nigerian consumers rarely gravitated to buy any new product launch by these two companies. The ads were all looking the same to Nigerians and they could hardly distinguish which is which anymore. The challenge: Coca-cola’ Fanta was gaining upper hand and Pepsi had just invented this new product call ‘ Mirinda’ which they believe will help them compete with Fanta. The challenge was how to launch this new product in such a way that Nigerians won’t just ignore it as they have been doing to the soft-drinks launch around that time. How do they get Nigerians gravitating to this new Soft-drink? Objective: To garner ...