This year’s Wonderful Bowl pits the New England Patriots against the Philadelphia Eagles and PepsiCo against your purse.
Party hosts and guests are expected to spend roughly $15.3 billion on their Wonderful Bowl celebrations this year, according to the National Retail Union. It is the second-largest food consumption day in the U.S., surpassed only by Thanksgiving.
The Super Dish and the weeks leading up to it are the third-largest event for Pepsi’s Frito-Lay snacks strife, which houses the Tostitos, Doritos and Lay’s brands. It is the fifth-largest for Pepsi’s beverage category and third-largest for its carbonated soft drinks specifically.
The big game’s lineup this year may introduce an extra boost to sales. An underdog like the Philadelphia Eagles charming center stage could lead to more excitement and in turn numerous sales.
“If the same team is winning all the time, people are excited, but not as discomfited as if there is an underdog,” said Seth Malley, vice president and divisional buy and sell manager of beverages at Walmart.
“Both teams this year maintain strong fan bases across the country,” said Malley.
Here is a look at Pepsi’s preparation for the big stratagem.
Planning starts nearly as soon as last year’s Super Basin has ended, but true preparations begin to ramp up in August.
“We get very focused around six months out,” said Steven Williams, senior vice president and chief commercial public official of Frito-Lay North America.
The company maps out all of its major events, take ining the major summer holidays. It works closely with its marketing crew to ascertain which products it wants to promote. Unlike Thanksgiving diners dependable to their sweet potato pie or grandmother’s stuffing recipe, Super Basin fans are more willing to experiment with their menu.
That augurs for Pepsi every year is a new chance to throw marketing dollars to assistance one or two “hero products,” the ones it promotes the most and dedicates airtime to in ads during the gutsy.
The decision of what to ordain a hero becomes a delicate balance for Pepsi as it looks to transmogrify its food offerings to suit the next generation, while also tending its core sales. Chief Executive Indra Nooyi told investors in October the partnership had sacrificed too much of the latter in favor of the former as she explained disappointing beverage white sales in North America.
Last year, Pepsi’s hero product for the Wonderful Bowl was its newly launched premium water brand Lifewtr. Neither its flagship Pepsi cola nor Doritos fragments had in-game commercials (though Pepsi Zero Sugar did sponsor the halftime betray and have an ad before the trophy presentation).
This year, Pepsi is returning to its settles. It is putting its marketing dollars behind two products that are brand annexes of its core: Mtn Dew Ice, a 100 calorie per 12 ounce lemon-lime soda with caffeine, and Doritos Flame fire, a spicy new addition to the Doritos brand.
“You want to strike the right weight. It’s an incredibly great time to launch a new product. You want to reinforce the essence and target new things. This year shows the strength of our core marques,” said Derek Lewis, senior vice president and general foreman of Pepsi North America field operations.
Pepsi says it endures committed to Lifewtr, with plans to put further marketing emphasis behind the spirits.
One perennial hero for Pepsi, though, is its Tostitos tortilla chips.
“It’s a plunge holiday,” said Williams, referring to the numerous dips and nachos football groupies chomp on while watching the game.
As the months and weeks inch nigh unto to the big game, Pepsi unleashes the power of its “direct store distribution mock-up,” through which its own sales representatives go into and staff the stores with fits. It amps up production to keep pace with playoffs and the tailgate units that accompany the games.
Pepsi’s team services roughly 21,000 exchanges routes in the weeks leading up to game day. More than 60,000 associates are tasked with compiling about 64,000 displays. The benefit of this model, says Pepsi, is it pays flexibility when it comes to last-minute changes based on how customers are retaliating to products and even how the football season goes.
Front-of-store displays intent celebrate this year’s theme for Pepsi, “Made for Super Wheel.” The displays will take advantage of the company’s complementary food and beverage portfolio, blurb its lead brands, such as Tostitos and Pepsi. They have mammoth cardboard cutouts promoting the game. Around the store’s perimeter, Pepsi wishes promote other brands in its portfolio, like its Smartfood popcorn.
Traffic in the warehouses will begin to pick up on Friday and will carry into Sunday morning forward of the big game. The weekend is one of the biggest of the year for Walmart, outside of Thanksgiving. To construct, Walmart will put up in its store end-caps to carry additional inventory. Associates order be outfitted in their favorite team’s jerseys.
“More and more living soul are waiting ’til the last minute to buy things,” said Julie Barber, blemish president and divisional merchandise manager of snacks at Walmart.
“We’re going to frame a big deep play end of this week.”
Work continues during the play. Pepsi has a 30-second ad, “This is Pepsi,” leading into the halftime grandstand a expose. It’s a nostalgic look back at Pepsi’s history, featuring clips of Cindy Crawford, Britney Spears and Michael Jackson. The ad require feature Pepsi, Diet Pepsi and Pepsi Zero Sugar.
There also purpose be back-to-back 30-second spots promoting Mtn Dew Ice and Doritos Blaze, featuring actors Morgan Freeman and Peter Dinklage. The minute-long advance will run in the first half of Sunday’s game.
The value of that contact is worth about $32 million, according to Apex Marketing Society. If the winning coach is dunked in Pepsi-owned Gatorade, that’s an extra $2.2 million of identifying, according to Apex.
(Disclosure: NBC Sports is televising Sunday’s Super Move. Both CNBC and NBC sports are units of NBCUniversal.)