Aquafina Asks Consumers to Film their New Year's Resolution

Along with the new year comes the new year’s resolution, and marketers tired annual attempts to make their own products and services a part of that resolution.  But the best resolutions are the easiest to keep, and what could be easier than the universal piece of dieting advice almost every "guru" offers … drink more water.  Pepsi’s Aquafina has taken the easiest of all resolutions, and created a viral promotion with the resolution to drink more water as the backdrop.  The site promises to offer a short film each day with a new resolution from "people like you" brought to life.  There are six more to be release over the next six days. (via MarketingVox) 

The most interesting part of this promotion, however, is the mix of these professionally created resolution films, and Pepsi’s corresponding call through AOL for users to submit their own films of their new year’s resolutions.  Yet another example of how advertisers are tailoring their efforts to the growth of consumer generated media by encouraging users to generate their own content in order to win some prize.  I’d love to sit in Pepsi’s marketing team meeting and see what the metrics are for success between a promotion like this for a $10,000 prize, and a scratch to win promotion with a grand prize of $100,000.  Ultimately, I question whether any consumers (except for the winner) would remember the brand associated with the Scratch and Win.  But if you could get thousands of consumers to create videos of their new years resolution (and presumably tell thousands of others about their efforts)?  At least they’ll remember the name Aquafina in a product category where historically the shape of the plastic bottle has been the only differentiator …