Pepsi and Paramount Global take a trip back in time to prove that television advertising still has a future.
Starting Thursday, the soda giant is launching a massive video campaign set in ancient Rome that promotes not only some of its flagship beverages, but also Paramount’s upcoming “Gladiator II,” the new NFL season and even Megan Thee Stallion, who appears in the spot alongside football greats Josh Allen, Derrick Henry, Justin Jefferson and Travis Kelce. The campaign can be seen across various Paramount platforms — including CBS Sports, Comedy Central and VH-1’s NFL broadcasts, as well as the networks’ social media feeds. Megan Thee Stallion will appear in full gladiator gear at the 2024 MTV Video Music Awards before the two-minute-plus version of the commercial airs, and Pepsi’s nod to the film will be woven into the Oct. 9 episode of MTV’s “The Challenge” to remind viewers of the overall message.
“Megan Thee Stallion is going to get people’s attention. Travis Kelce and Josh Allen are going to get people’s attention,” said John Halley, Paramount’s advertising director, in an interview. “This is a prime brand moment for Pepsi and one that will last.” The campaign will run until the new film debuts in late November.
The hard-to-ignore commercial salvo serves to bring back into the spotlight some of television’s most iconic methods of serving advertisers – qualities that are being forgotten in the age of streaming.
Madison Avenue has long invested millions of dollars in TV products to deliver memorable commercials to the widest possible media audience. Before the advent of Netflix, Hulu and Max, this was easier to achieve because consumers could watch their favorite content at their own choosing. However, this results in smaller and more varied viewership for each stream of a sitcom, drama or movie. As a result, more advertisers are focusing on leveraging digital data to reach more specific consumer groups, such as first-time car buyers or expectant mothers.
And yet it is difficult to resist the temptation of the teeming crowd.
Getting an ad in front of a large audience requires more work, and Paramount has done that work, Halley says. “It affects every single endpoint that Paramount controls,”
In another era, a major advertiser could simply place a few commercials on television and be sure to reach the numbers needed to make money. Today, an advertising concept must be spread across multiple ratings, always with the goal of stimulating consumer interest in dozens of different interactions with series, films and specials.
Other major advertisers have made greater efforts to attract the masses. Frito-Lay, a sister company of Pepsi, grabbed a third of all national advertising inventory on ABC in a single day in February to show eight different commercials for Lay’s potato chips – over and over again – that told a story that echoed the 1993 comedy Groundhog Day. During this year’s Paris Olympics, which NBCUniversal broadcast, major media agency GroupM bought an entire commercial break – an unusual move – and filled it exclusively with commercials from its own clients, such as Target, Coca-Cola and Google.
Pepsi’s visit to Rome has been about a year in the making. According to Halley, the beverage giant first approached Paramount last year with a big idea related to “Gladiator II.” The media company worked with Ridley Scott Associates to develop and produce the new commercial, which will be edited and tailored in different ways for various appearances in traditional, social and digital media.
Pepsi has had a relationship with Paramount and its predecessor Viacom for decades, a dynamic that helped the idea take root. Pepsi has sponsored the MTV Video Music Awards for nearly four decades, getting involved in everything from the effort to send fans of the MTV series “Laguna Beach” text alerts about plot developments to luring viewers of VH1, Comedy Central and other cable channels to share photos for a chance to win awards.
In addition to Pepsi’s beverages, a lot of advertising dollars also flowed to the media company. According to MediaRadar, an ad spend provider, PepsiCo spent more than $181 million on advertising in digital media, print, radio and television in 2023. According to MediaRadar, 85% of ad spending last year was on network and cable television, and 15% of total ad spending was on Paramount stations, CBS, Comedy Central, MTV, Paramount Network and VH1.
The beverage manufacturer has visited the Roman Empire in the past. In 2003, Pepsi caused a stir with a spectacular commercial for international markets in which Beyoncé, Britney Spears and Pink competed as Roman gladiators in the Colosseum to the sounds of “We Will Rock You” by Queen. Enrique Iglesias appeared as a cruel emperor whose plans were thwarted by the musical warriors.
Paramount’s Halley says the Pepsi ad campaign is the first of what he calls “summit” packages aimed at giving advertisers the “widest reach across Paramount’s entire asset base – broadcast, sports, cable, all of our digital endpoints – all tied to” well-known content. The company has already approached a handful of advertisers with ideas, he says, noting that “you’ll see more of that,” and hinting that other concepts could include Paramount films or even scripts for episodic TV series.
Such concepts “take a long time to implement,” he notes, “but the list of clients who can pursue such ambitious goals is relatively short.” Paramount is undoubtedly looking for advertisers who have time for more than fiddling around with the minutiae.
