The following is a response blog to Kyle’s Yoshida’s post on Pepsi’s “Test Drive” Viral Video. Please see here for his post. 

I greatly enjoyed the video, and found it to be an exceptional example of how effective viral videos can be when done well. I found it how interesting that Pepsi did not choose to explicitly say anything that would encourage buyers to purchase their product. Instead, they used product placement, and left it to the viewers to decide for themselves. The video builds Pepsi’s brand, and associates the Pepsi name with excitement and thrill in the consumer’s mind. This builds the long-term brand power of Pepsi, as thrill-seeking youth buy into what Pepsi represents.

I think the challenge with viral videos is that it is not easy to get these videos to go viral – I imagine we probably underestimate the difficulty of this because we only see the viral videos that have been successful. For every successful viral video there are likely hundreds if not thousands of failed attempts.  In this particular case, I think the effectiveness of the content helped Pepsi’s video gain views rapidly. I think Pepsi’s decision to use more subtle marketing in terms of the product placement may have helped this. If the video had had Pepsi plastered all over it, the average viewer might be less willing to post it on his Facebook, for example. Because the video is more about the test drive and less about Pepsi, even viewers who have no real attachment to Pepsi will be willing to share it, and create a ripple effect in terms of view count. All in all, an interesting piece of marketing.