The Campaign
Knowing that young Egyptians are shifting the music scene through their newfound passion for local music, we wanted to make them center-stage in the underground music experience. We created the Pepsi music app, and challenged young Egyptians to take on a unique music challenge. Consumers were asked to download the app and record random raw sounds straight from Egyptian streets – anything from honks, to local sayings, to street vendors or stray cats – these sounds were then sent to Egypt’s most popular music producer, Hassan El Shafei, who mixed a number of sound submissions and used them to create his new hit single. With this single, we created Pepsi's most youthful & random music video - one that hammered on Egypt's most iconic street symbols; with a mix of graphics & visual representation of everything that is truly Egyptian at it's core.
Creative Execution
The execution of this content followed the creative strategy of having the consumer-generated feel. Just like the music was made by the people, for the music video we went down the streets and took organic footage of the source of the sounds. We gave people a month to send us different sounds from around Egypt, and used it to create a grungy, funky music video that was just as unique as the piece of music. We waited to release the piece at it's peak time, the summer - when new fresh music is sought after. We also premiered it at the summer opening of Egypt's biggest beach club. Because the campaign was originated on a digital platform, the home the music video, also had to live on digital - where we posted it on Pepsi social media channels, and on Hassan El Shafei's (the famous composer's) Youtube page.
As expected, the copy sky-rocketed on social media, with notable metrics. Facebook engagement hit at 33,0633; we reached a staggering 6,273,193 people on Facebook. Views also trumped at 2,192,600. The video on instagram and Youtube also performed significantly well - with 10,286 post engagement hits, and 4,431,543 views on Youtube.
As branded content should be, this music video was both entertaining & engaging in nature. Our work is extremely relevant for this category, as it was both an entertainment piece by nature & one of the strongest consumer generated pieces in Egypt. Our content was not a piece of brand communication, but purely branded content that strengthened Pepsi's association with music. Moreover, to add on to the entertainment aspect; the music video was composed by Egypt's most popular DJ; with this uniquely composed single, we created a music video that told the story of being Egyptian.
In dissecting Pepsi’s competitive landscape; our insight was driven by the overlap of the market place opportunity & consumer insight. with Egyptian youth making up 60% of national Egyptian population, and 50% of the population using internet regularly our main platform of communication had to be online. Moreover, our objective was to tap into young Egyptian’s passion; and when it comes to music – the hottest trends were not around big global stars, but in the local underground music scene.
With that said, this was our opportunity, to engage our consumers in co-creating music on a digital platform and most importantly, scale it with a home-grown, underground and organic feel – and what’s more local than the sounds of the streets? Especially when most of your target live in the 3rd nosiest city in the world
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