From the 1930s through the late 1950s, "
Pepsi-Cola Hits The Spot" was the most commonly used slogan in the days of
old-time radio,
classic motion pictures and
early days of television. Its jingle (conceived in the days when Pepsi cost only five cents) was used in many different forms with different lyrics. With the rise of radio, Pepsi-Cola utilized the services of a young, up-and-coming actress named
Polly Bergen to promote products, oftentimes, lending her singing talents to the classic "...Hits The Spot" jingle. Film actress
Joan Crawford, after marrying Pepsi-Cola president
Alfred N. Steele became a spokesperson for Pepsi, appearing in commercials, television specials, and televised
beauty pageants on behalf of the company. Crawford also had images of the soft drink placed prominently in several of her later films. When Steele died in 1959, Crawford was appointed to the Board of Directors of Pepsi-Cola, a position she held until 1973, although she was not a board member of the larger PepsiCo, created in 1965. Pepsi has been featured in several films, including
Back to the Future Part II (1989),
Home Alone (1990), ''
Wayne's World (1992), Fight Club (1999), World War Z'' (2013), and in films directed by
Spike Lee. in New York City illuminated Pepsi marketing has also been marred in controversy. In 1989, Pepsi commissioned a $5 million marketing campaign to coincide with the release of
Madonna's song "
Like a Prayer", but was cancelled following strong backlash regarding the religious themes in the song's music video. In 1992, the
Pepsi Number Fever marketing campaign in the
Philippines accidentally distributed 800,000 winning bottle caps for a 1 million
peso grand prize, leading to riots and the deaths of five people. In 1996, PepsiCo launched the highly successful
Pepsi Stuff marketing strategy. "Project Blue" was launched in several international markets outside the United States in April. It was at this point, the logo began to be referred to as the Pepsi Globe. From 1986 to 1991, the wordmark in the Pepsi logo was typeset in
Handel Gothic. This logo was also used for
Pepsi Throwback until 2014. In October 2008, Pepsi announced that it would redesign its logo and re-brand many of its products by early 2009. In 2009, Pepsi,
Diet Pepsi, and
Pepsi Max began using all lower-case fonts for name brands. The brand's
blue and red globe trademark became a series of "smiles," with the central white band initially arcing at different angles depending on the product. In March 2023, Pepsi unveiled a new logo expected to launch in North America in late-2023, and internationally in 2024 (including 2025 in Colombia). The logo is a modernization of the "vintage" Pepsi logo; accompanying branding elements will also shift from blue to black as their primary color. File:Pepsi Cola logo 1902.svg|The original stylized Pepsi-Cola wordmark, used from 1898 until 1905 File:Pepsi Cola logo 1940.svg|The stylized Pepsi-Cola wordmark used from 1951 to 1971. Reused for some special products since 2014. Also used for the Pepsi-Cola sign in
Queens, NY. File:Pepsi bi (1973).svg|The
Pepsi Globe logo used from 1971 to 1986. Reused for special products from 2009–14. File:PepsiOld.svg|The Pepsi globe and wordmark used from 1997 to 2003 File:Pepsi logo 2014.svg|The Pepsi globe and wordmark used from 2014 to 2023 File:Pepsi 2023.svg|The current Pepsi globe logo since August 23, 2023
Niche marketing Walter Mack was named the new president of Pepsi-Cola and guided the company through the 1940s. Mack, who supported
progressive causes, noticed that the company's strategy of using advertising for a general audience either ignored African Americans or used ethnic stereotypes in portraying Blacks. Up until the 1940s, the full revenue potential of what was called "the Negro market" was largely ignored by
white-owned manufacturers in the U.S. Mack realized that Black people were an untapped
niche market and that Pepsi stood to gain market share by targeting its advertising directly towards them. To this end, he hired Hennan Smith, an advertising executive "from the
Negro newspaper field" to lead an all-black sales team, which had to be cut due to the onset of World War II. is the boy reaching for a bottle. In 1947, Walter Mack resumed his efforts, hiring
Edward F. Boyd to lead a twelve-man team. They came up with advertising portraying black Americans in a positive light, such as one with a smiling mother holding a six pack of Pepsi while her son (a young
Ron Brown, who grew up to be
Secretary of Commerce) reaches up for one. Another ad campaign, titled "Leaders in Their Fields", profiled twenty prominent African Americans such as
Nobel Peace Prize winner
Ralph Bunche and photographer
Gordon Parks. Boyd also led a sales team composed entirely of blacks around the country to promote Pepsi.
Racial segregation and
Jim Crow laws were still in place throughout much of the U.S.; Boyd's team faced a great deal of discrimination as a result, After the sales team visited
Chicago, Pepsi's share in the city overtook that of Coke for the first time. Pepsi advertisements avoided the stereotypical images common in the major media that depicted
Aunt Jemimas and
Uncle Bens, whose role was to draw a smile from white customers. Instead, it portrayed black customers as self-confident
middle-class citizens who showed very good taste in their soft drinks. They were economical too, as Pepsi bottles were twice the size. This focus on the market for black people caused some consternation within the company and among its affiliates. It did not want to seem focused on black customers for fear white customers would be pushed away. After Mack left the company in 1950, support for the black sales team faded and it was cut.
Rivalry with Coca-Cola According to Consumer Reports, in the 1970s, the rivalry continued to heat up the market. Pepsi conducted
blind taste tests in stores, in what was called the "
Pepsi Challenge". These tests suggested that more consumers preferred the taste of Pepsi to Coca-Cola. The sales of Pepsi started to climb, and Pepsi kicked off the "Challenge" across the nation. This became known as the "
cola wars". In 1985,
The Coca-Cola Company, amid much publicity, changed
its formula. The theory has been advanced that
New Coke, as the reformulated drink came to be known, was invented specifically in response to the Pepsi Challenge. However, a consumer backlash led to Coca-Cola quickly reintroducing the original formula as "Coca-Cola Classic". In 1989,
Billy Joel mentioned the rivalry between the two companies in the song "
We Didn't Start the Fire". The line "Rock & Roller Cola Wars" refers to Pepsi and Coke's usage of various musicians in advertising campaigns. Coke used
Paula Abdul, while Pepsi used
Michael Jackson. Both companies then competed to get other
musicians to advertise its beverages. According to
Beverage Digests 2008 report on carbonated soft drinks, PepsiCo's U.S. market share is 30.8 percent, while The Coca-Cola Company's is 42.7 percent (this includes all their respective brands). Coca-Cola outsells Pepsi in most parts of the U.S., notable exceptions being central
Appalachia,
Montana,
North Dakota, and
Utah. In the city of
Buffalo, New York, Pepsi outsells Coca-Cola by a two-to-one margin. As of 2024, Pepsi had fallen behind
Coca-Cola and
Dr Pepper as the third most popular soft drink in the United States, losing its second place spot to the aforementioned Dr Pepper, a position it had held since 1985. While total American Pepsi sales figures never overtook that of Coca-Cola (with the special exception of 1985 when Coca-Cola sales were fractured between New Coke and Coca-Cola Classic), in corporate terms, the PepsiCo company had overtaken the Coca-Cola Company in total corporate sales in 1979, partly driven by PepsiCo's wide range of non-beverage products (after its merger with
Frito-Lay in 1965).
Around the world Overall, Coca-Cola continues to outsell Pepsi in almost all areas of the world. However, exceptions include:
Oman,
India,
Saudi Arabia,
Pakistan,
Egypt,. Pepsi isn't sold in
Russia,
Cuba and
North Korea. Pepsi had long been the drink of
French-Canadians, and it continues to hold its dominance by relying on local
Québécois celebrities (especially
Claude Meunier, of
La Petite Vie fame) to sell its product. PepsiCo introduced the Quebec slogan "here, it's Pepsi" () in response to Coca-Cola ads proclaiming "Around the world, it's Coke" (). In
India, by most accounts, Coca-Cola was India's leading soft drink until 1977, when it left India because of the new foreign exchange laws which mandated majority shareholding in companies to be held by Indian shareholders; Coca-Cola was unwilling to dilute its stake in its Indian unit as required by the
Foreign Exchange Regulation Act, which would have forced them to share
their formula with an entity in which it did not have majority shareholding. In 1988, PepsiCo entered the Indian market by creating a joint venture with the
government of Punjab-owned Punjab Agro Industrial Corporation and Voltas India Limited. This joint venture marketed and sold Lehar Pepsi until 1991, when the use of foreign brands was allowed; PepsiCo promptly bought out its partners and ended the joint venture in 1994. In 1993, Coca-Cola returned to the Indian market in pursuance of India's
liberalization policy. As of 2012, Pepsi is the third most popular carbonated drink in India, with a 15% market share, behind
Sprite and
Thums Up. In comparison, Coca-Cola is the fourth most popular carbonated drink, occupying a mere 8.8% of the Indian market share. style in supermarket in
Kyiv, Ukraine In
Russia, Pepsi initially had a larger market share than Coke, but it was undercut once the
Cold War ended. In 1972, PepsiCo struck a barter agreement with the
government of the Soviet Union, in which PepsiCo was granted exportation and Western marketing rights to
Stolichnaya vodka in exchange for importation and Soviet marketing of Pepsi. This exchange led to Pepsi being the first foreign product sanctioned for sale in the Soviet Union. Reminiscent of the way that Coca-Cola became a cultural icon and its global spread spawned words like "
cocacolonization", Pepsi and its relation to the Soviet system turned it into an icon. In the early 1990s, the term "Pepsi-stroika" began appearing as a pun on "
perestroika", the reform policy of the Soviet Union under
Mikhail Gorbachev. Critics viewed the policy as an attempt to usher in Western products in deals there with the old elites; Pepsi, as one of the first American products in the Soviet Union, became a symbol of that relationship and the Soviet policy, reflected in Russian author
Victor Pelevin's book
Generation P. In 1992, following the
dissolution of the Soviet Union, Coca-Cola was introduced to the
Russian market and rapidly captured a significant market share due to public perceptions of Coca-Cola as representative of the new post-Soviet system (as opposed to Pepsi being exemplary of the old Soviet era), a market growth that might otherwise have required years to achieve. By July 2005, Coca-Cola enjoyed a market share of 19.4 percent, followed by Pepsi with 13 percent. Pepsi was introduced in
Romania in 1966, during the early liberalization policies of
Nicolae Ceaușescu, opening a factory at
Constanța in 1967. This was done as a barter agreement similar to the one in the USSR, with
Romanian wine serving as their bartered drink sold in the West. Pepsi quickly became popular in Romania, especially among young people, but due to the
austerity measures imposed in the 1980s, it became scarce and difficult to find. After the fall of Soviet communism in 1991, PepsiCo entered the new Romanian market economy, and still maintains a bigger popularity than Coca-Cola, which was introduced in Romania in 1992, despite heavy competition during the 1990s (sometime between 2000 and 2005, Pepsi overtook Coca-Cola in sales in Romania). In 1984,
Venezuela was cited as the only country where Pepsi cola sales were higher than Coca-Cola. Pepsi did not sell soft drinks in
Israel until 1991. Many Israelis and some
American Jewish organizations attributed Pepsi's previous reluctance to expand operations in Israel to fears of an
Arab boycott. Pepsi, which has a large and lucrative business in the Arab world, denied the claims, stating that economic, rather than political, reasons kept it out of Israel. Pepsi entered the market in
Vietnam in 1994 after the end of an American trade embargo against the country. Both Pepsi and Coca-Cola immediately launched following the end of the embargo, starting a 'cola war' in Vietnam.
Pepsiman s dressed as PepsimanPepsiman is an official Pepsi mascot from Pepsi's
Japanese corporate branch, which debuted in March 1996. Pepsiman took on three different outfits, each one representing the current style of the Pepsi can in distribution. Twelve commercials were created featuring the character. His role in the advertisements is to appear with Pepsi to thirsty people or people craving soda. Pepsiman happens to appear at just the right time with the product. After delivering the beverage, sometimes Pepsiman would encounter a difficult and action-oriented situation which would result in injury. Pepsiman is mostly silent, and he has no face except for a hole that opens up whenever he delivers a Pepsi. Another more minor mascot, Pepsiwoman, also featured in a few of her own commercials for
Pepsi Twist; her appearance is basically a female Pepsiman wearing a lemon-shaped
balaclava. In 1996,
Sega-AM2 released the
Sega Saturn version of its arcade fighting game
Fighting Vipers. In this game, Pepsiman was included as a special character, with his specialty listed as being the ability to "quench one's thirst." He does not appear in any other version or sequel. In 1999,
KID developed a
video game for the
PlayStation entitled
Pepsiman. As the titular character, the player runs "on rails" (forced motion on a scrolling linear path), skateboards, rolls, and stumbles through various areas, avoiding dangers and collecting cans of Pepsi, all while trying to reach a thirsty person as in the commercials. Despite largely being considered a financial failure, Pepsiman has developed a
cult following due to its over the top and nonsensical premise. ==Sports sponsorships==