Pepsis' Tava and online brand advertising

The NYTimes just published an article about the advertising campaign for Tava, a new caffeine-free fruit flavored beverage from Pepsi. Generally attempts to create general market brand awareness happen offline not online. Though Tava is being targetted specifically at men and women ages 35 to 49, this campaign is definitely a departure from that pattern given that it will employee primarily online marketing tools.

To quote from the article:

“There used to be an assumption this target was not online,” said Frank Cooper, vice president for flavored carbonated soft drinks at Pepsi-Cola North America in Purchase, N.Y. “But there’s a group in that category that’s ‘reborn digital.’ They’ve lived through the change and learned to adapt to it.”

“This consumer spends significant time online, although what they do may differ from the younger consumer,” Mr. Cooper said. “They’re not I.M.-ing their friends; they’re looking at e-mail or looking up information about travel, music, food.”

To help Tava reach the right audience, Mr. Cooper turned to agencies like Tribal DDB Worldwide, the interactive unit of DDB Worldwide, part of the Omnicom Group; TracyLocke, an Omnicom shop that specializes in tasks like promotions aimed at shoppers; Element 79, an Omnicom advertising agency; and Grow Marketing, which creates what it calls “brand experiences” that are meant to generate favorable consumer recommendations (a k a positive word of mouth).

“The heart of it is creating more of an emotional connection with consumers by tapping into their natural inclination to tell other people about their experiences,” said Cassie Hughes, strategic director at Grow in San Francisco, which also works for marketers like J. Crew, Levi Strauss and Visa.

For Tava, “the strategy was going in to talk to the right few who could fuel the many,” she added.

In addition to providing samples to employees of companies like Apple, Bliss Spa, Google and MTV, Pepsi-Cola is giving away Tava at events like the Sundance Film Festival and to customers of businesses like Frank’s Chop Shop, a barbershop on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. It will also offer the beverage to arts lovers at plays, concerts and festivals, and to celebrities at locations like the set of the TV soap opera “General Hospital.”

According to Ms. Hughes and Mr. Cooper, the campaign is zeroing in on eight major markets where consumers seem to appreciate soft drinks that contain vitamins and bear new-age flavor names like Brazilian Samba, Mediterranean Fiesta and Tahitian Tamure. They are Boston, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Seattle and Raleigh, N.C.

The online aspects of the campaign extend beyond local markets. The Web sites on which the Tava banner ads are to appear include AOL, chow.com, CitySearch, dailycandy.com, discovery.com, Evite, MSN, oprah.com, People and weather.com.