Sep 2, 2009

Pepsi Adopts a New (& Old) Name

This campaign for Pepsi Argentina, makes the most of something that -normally- brands hate: having their name mispronounced. Making a long story short, since I was a kid Pepsi was a name that some people just couldn't get it right, and Pepsi was for them "Pecsi" or "Pesi".

In this new campaign, Pepsi cleverly adopts this other name and even praises those that say Pecsi. The ads are all very short, most of them with Carlos "Mostaza" Merlo. "Mostaza" (what means "Mustard" and became his nickname for the color of his hair) is a former football player, that after retiring became a football coach (note: I am talking about what the world knows as football that is known as soccer in this part of the world.)

Anyway, going back to the commercial: Mostaza is well know for mispronouncing soccer English terms as well as the cola brand, and -of course-, that makes him the perfect spokesperson for this campaign.

Here, one of the short ads, with subtitles:


The campaign has several short ads like this one but also a website "Tomás Pecsi" ("You drink Pecsi") that makes the most of the whole mispronouncing English. It has "Daunlos"(downloads) and even a "Pecsipedia" that is pretty funny and allows users to enter new terms that they mispronounce. Is in this dictionary that the brand praises those that say "Pecsi": the brands assumes that it is not that those doing so don't know how some words should be pronounced, but that they don't care.

Interestingly enough, when I first saw the ads I thought it was a great idea but that it was the kind of campaign that could not be understood in any other part of the world. I was wrong: Talking with colleagues from Colombia and Venezuela, I learned that in those countries some people not only say "Pecsi" but also "Petsi" and "Persi"...

Anyone out there knows of yet another way of saying "Pepsi"?

PS: If you understand Spanish, here you can see more ads from this same campaign.

Thanks Mauricio and Ana for the info on Colombia and Venezuela!

2 comments:

Paulo said...

But the campaign is wrong, falsely conducted by someone who read Mafalda, where Manolito writes "Doña Polola: 1 voteya pecsi" or something like that.
In Buenos Aires, people mostly says "pesi". No C. No P.

San said...

I guess we have been in different neighbourhoods... ;) While I have heard "Pesi" more often than "Pecsi" I have heard the last one more than once! It is not just a Manolito thing, I can testify on that...