When it comes to cola sales in Canada, summer is the most crucial time of the year. Despite only lasting 3 months, this period is considered the most competitive and accounts for nearly 35% of annual sales. To come out on top, Pepsi’s agency, BBDO, needed to drive purchase frequency by stimulating brand love and consumer engagement.

Over the years, both Coke and Pepsi have battled it out with limited-time SKUs and ground-breaking shelf to media campaigns. In order to establish Pepsi as the cola brand of the summer, BBDO had to win with relevance. And most importantly, boost Pepsi’s purchase frequency over Coke.

The focus was young millennials who are the prime audience for single-serve SKUs. Pepsi needed to be more relevant in connecting with this group than Coke would be. One key insight powered BBDO’s thinking. No group is more socially active than young millennials. And the #1 platform they’re socially active is on Snapchat. Some 78% of younger millennials use Snapchat on a daily basis, which reach is higher than Instagram or Facebook. Snapchat also generated the most frequency, with 70% of younger millennials reporting they check in more than 6x per day.

To beat Coke and win the summer, Pepsi would do it with the platform most relevant to young millennials. Introducing, “Snap It With Pepsi” – the first ever brand to leverage Snapcodes on-pack to give consumers unique and exclusive Snapchat lenses to amplify their summer moments.

Crafted in Canada, the “Snap It With Pepsi” program created 20 unique Snapchat lenses that could be unlocked simply by scanning a Snapcode on select bottles and cases of Pepsi. To grab consumer attention, BBDO worked with an illustrator from the UK who created 20 unique designs to live on packaging and throughout the campaign creative. Each unique illustration appeared on packaging through the frame of a Snapcode, and hinted at the lens available to unlock on that particular bottle. To further drive awareness, and to initiate trial, BBDO created a teaser video that displayed all its lenses, a :15 OLV, and OOH creative that even gave away exclusive lenses. The agency also created two stunts, that involved partnering with ET Canada to launch the world’s first broadcast lens, which featured hosts Rick & Roz overlaid with its hero Moose lens during their normal broadcast. To further drive buzz and tease the campaign, BBDO dropped giant Snapcodes in key locations across Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal.

“Snap It With Pepsi” was the biggest lens activation Snapchat has ever done in any market in the world. It generated outstanding results for Pepsi in connecting with the young millennial consumer. Pepsi set to win the summer through greater relevance with the most important consumer. It worked. Pepsi sales in the key SKUs beat Coke by almost $1 million in sales, equating to a +0.2 share swing across the trademark. Campaign metrics demonstrate the right promotion and communication drove superior results, in both forced view and skippable formats. Users reached by forced-view Google Preferred saw a +37% lift in Ad Recall, a 12% lift in Consideration and a 14% lift in Purchase Intent. Furthermore, users reached by skippable TrueView video resulted in an 24.9% lift in Ad Recall, and a 42% lift in Brand Interest. BBDO also exceeded its total campaign target for number of unlocks lens and lens shares by 171% from Snapcodes.