Pepsi shared a short piece of HTML code on Twitter and asked its followers to use it. Soon Pepsi was appearing on the websites of NASA, the White House, The New York Times, Apple and even Coca-Cola. The brand did not pay for a single placement.
The Sites Money Cannot Buy
Some of the most visited pages on the internet do not sell ad space. A brand cannot buy a banner on the White House website or the Google home page, and it certainly cannot advertise on a rival’s site.
Pepsi Colombia and agency Sancho BBDO went after exactly those pages. Instead of buying media, they handed the job to the brand’s own followers.
How the Code Worked
Pepsi posted the HTML code on Twitter and invited followers to run it on any website they liked, from their own computers. The code dropped a Pepsi message into the page.
Nothing was actually hacked. The code changed how a page looked on the follower’s own screen, and never touched the site itself. The campaign lived in what people did next, which was to capture the result and share it.
That made every follower a media buyer with access to sites no budget could reach.
Where Pepsi Showed Up
Followers chose their own targets, and they aimed high. Pepsi appeared on the pages of NASA, the White House, The New York Times, Tesla, the Google home page, Apple, Starbucks, Nike, KFC, Sony and Chevrolet.
The most pointed one was Coca-Cola. Putting a Pepsi message on its biggest rival’s website was the kind of result fans were always going to share.
What Fans Got in Return
The deal was simple. Followers who used the code were rewarded with a Pepsi, given away through Twitter. The campaign ran without an advertising budget and without paid influencers.
What It Added Up To
According to the case study, followers put Pepsi on more than 2,900 websites. Brand interactions on Twitter grew 9.4%, and positive comments about the brand rose 8,300%.
The work was entered at Cannes Lions 2022 in Brand Experience and Activation.
The Team Behind the Code
Sancho BBDO’s team was led by chief creative officer Mario Lagos, with general creative directors Daniel Álvarez and Diego Contreras. Creative directors Jose Ariel Hernández and Andrés Lancheros worked alongside copywriter Juan Diego Rivera and art director Juan David Pérez.
The idea worked because it borrowed the language of hacking without breaking anything. Pepsi wrote one line of code, and its fans did the rest.
Campaign Name: Pepsi Code
Agency Name: Sancho BBDO
Brand Name: Pepsi Colombia
Location: Colombia, online via Twitter (2022)
