The Pepsi brand “Amp” Energy Drink released an iPhone application today with a very risque theme. The basic premise is to help guys score with women by giving them pickup lines, links to local areas of interest to the targeted woman, and suggested quotes. The application carries an NC-17 Rating on the Apple iTunes Store, which is fairly rare especially for a branded application relating to a major brand.
One of the things that I found interesting is that people who are offended by the brand and the application have labeled it as the “Pepsi App” not the “Amp” app. The detractors (and I’m one, I personally think the app takes the idea too far) have attached Pepsi to this impending PR Debacle. It’s simply a matter of going after the deeper pockets idea, much like a lawyer will sue the corporation that owns the building rather than the bodega shop owner over the slip and fall injury. And I do think that this type of transposition of responsibility is unfounded but it will most likely be effective. And of course Adam’s article in Mashable pushed the right buttons, within an hour it had over 500 people voting on it.
Amp Energy Official Twitter: www.twitter.com/AMPwhatsnext
Amp Energy Facebook Page: http://www.facebook.com/AMPEnergy
Pepsi Official Twitter: www.twitter.com/pepsi
B.Bonin Bough Director of Social Media for Pepsi www.Twitter.com/boughb
Twitter Hashtag #pepsifail http://search.twitter.com/search?q=%23pepsifail
Give me one good reason why this won’t kill the Amp drink brand:Please post any new links in the comments!
4 responses so far ↓
1 Missing the point about Pepsi’s Before you Score App? | CharlesNeville.com // Oct 12, 2009 at 2:29 pm
[...] amounts to ‘Pepsi don’t want women to buy from them’. Some are calling it a fiasco. Just like Motrin moms and countless other ’storm in a social teacup’ incidents, this [...]
2 Energy drink brand’s i-Phone i-disaster : PR Disasters // Oct 13, 2009 at 1:44 am
[...] Over at Chris Kieff’s ‘One Good Reason’ blog, word on an impending PR disaster for Pepsi. [...]
3 Ben // Oct 16, 2009 at 12:22 pm
Because Amp is still a delicious energy drink. I don’t need to interact with all my favorite products online, I can just enjoy drinking the product without thinking about its brand getting ripped to shreds because of a poor marketing strategy….
4 Andre // Nov 1, 2009 at 1:03 pm
It is my opinion that the parent company – “Pepsi” in this case – should take the hit. People are right to call the app the “Pepsi app” for one simple reason: if the app were a success Pepsi would have no problem with it being called the Pepsi app. It’s when things go wrong the big companies like to separate from its “offspring” and let them take the fall. So yes, everyone should go after the “deeper pockets” on this one and hold Pepsi, as a whole, responsible.
To answer the question “Give me one good reason why this won’t kill the Amp drink brand?” – I believe that the target market for this drink are men. Since the average “Amp Man” probably wasn’t offended by this campaign, Pepsi can bet that sales will stay the same or possibly increase.
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