PepsiCo Creator Division Develops Immersive Creative Experiences

via Food Dive

Dive Brief:

• For the past 18 months, Creator has been PepsiCo North America Beverages' in-house division tasked with devising innovative ways to use immersive experiences to foster engagement with consumers.
• Creator debuted the Pepsi Art Dome, developed for PepsiCo by digital animated art site Likuid Art, at the Voodoo Music and Arts Experience in New Orleans on Halloween weekend. The 40-foot dome was an interactive art experience that was "raining lights and color on an audience sprawled out on couches," and "The 18 minutes of extrasensory chill-out culminates in swirling blue and red color whisps that coalesce into the Pepsi logo," according to Fast Company.
• The staff at Creator search for emerging trends in a variety of spaces, from sports and entertainment to technology and lifestyle, and then cultivate those concepts via artistic collaborations between PepsiCo brands, artists, and corporate partners.

Dive Insight:

"Creator is about transformation in marketing, how we embrace risk, deploy disruptive technology, and connect with consumers in new and different ways," Seth Kaufman, CMO for PepsiCo North America Beverages, told Fast Company. "Consumers are on multiple devices. Creator helps us stay on the leading edge of culture and break through the clutter. In today’s crowded communication landscape, connecting with consumers is hard, so we look for things like that to tap into their passions."

With the Pepsi Art Dome, PepsiCo and Likuid Art were careful to not create an explicit commercial for the company but to build something that seamlessly integrated with the rest of the festival's art pieces. They used only "subtle branding towards the end," Chris Saunders, Likuid Art's creative director, told Fast Company. 

What's also unique about Creator is that it tends to act more like a startup itself rather than a division of a major corporation, wherein the staff are constantly experimenting, learning, and updating each idea that comes their way.

"For a Fortune 50 packaged goods company, that’s a massive shift and a great way to think about innovation—seeing something, learning from it, putting something out into the market, learning from that experience, and making it better the next time," Kaufman told Fast Company. "We’ll take what we did at Voodoo, which was incredibly successful, build on it, and the next thing we put into the marketplace will be more effective."

The Pepsi Art Dome was the first of three installations that PepsiCo will launch in partnership with Live Nation Entertainment. The next will be at Farmborough Festival in New York in June.