Pepsi Snubs TV, Goes Online to Launch New Drink Tava

Pepsi is bypassing traditional media to launch its new carbonated beverage, Tava.

Pepsi-Cola North America is launching Tava with a campaign forsaking television and print in favor of new media. In doing so, it joins other brands such as Coca Cola, Kraft, P & G and Unilever in shifting more dollars to online advertising.

Tava is launching with tava.com, banner ads, promotions, sampling events and free samples delivered to the employees of prominent companies like Google and MTV.

While such an introduction isn’t that unusual for marketers courting the youth consumer, this fruit-flavored and caffeine-free drink is aimed at adults ages 35 to 49. “There used to be an assumption this target was not online,” said Frank Cooper, vice president for flavored carbonated soft drinks at Pepsi-Cola North America. “But there’s a group in that category that’s ‘reborn digital.’ They’ve lived through the change and learned to adapt to it.”

Tava is sending free samples to employees at Apple, Bliss Spa, Google and MTV and giving away Tava at the Sundance Film Festival, according to the New York Times. There will also be sampling opportunities at plays, concerts and festivals - even the set of General Hospital will get a taste.

Eight major markets are the focus: Boston, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Seattle and Raleigh, N.C.

The online component will reach beyond major metro areas; banner ads will show up on AOL, chow.com, CitySearch, dailycandy.com, discovery.com, Evite, MSN, oprah.com, People and weather.com.

The last time Pepsi launched a product without televison support was the 2005 flop Pepsi One.

Big brands have slowly been shifting ad dollars away from traditional media to the internet. According to an eMarketer study:

• Among Advertising Age’s “100 Leading National Advertisers,” 69 allocated a smaller share of their total ad budgets toward the four traditional measured media - TV, radio, newspapers and magazines - in 2006 than in 2005.
• 58 of those advertisers both decreased their spending share on the four traditional media and increased the share going to the internet.
• Combined, the 100 top advertisers spent nearly $230 million less on the traditional four media in 2006 compared with 2005, while boosting internet ad spending by $558 million.

The trend is expected to continue. The amount of online ad spend per internet user is growing and will, this year, for the first time surpass $100 per user; by 2011, advertisers are expected to spend nearly double that amount online per user.