PepsiCo continues to ramp up marketing investments for its core brands including Pepsi, Gatorade, Lay's and Quaker. And so while first-quarter earnings showed a drop of 5 percent from a year earlier, the increased advertising outlays may be the harbinger of future top- and bottom-line payoffs from brands that critics say were underexposed for years.

Besides, PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi said this week, the additional marketing investments—which she promised for last year to the tune of an additional half-billion in global expenditures on core brands—are being offset by the fruits of the company's $3-billion productivity program.

"With the productivity we're unlocking, we're able to invest in growth drivers like advertising and new-product launches to simultaneously drive margin improvement," she told analysts on a conference call, according to Advertising Age. But, she cautioned, "Any growth we achieve in one area takes from another area where we compete."Continue reading...

PepsiCo's CMO, Salman Amin, is leaving the company for S.C. Johnson on a high note, having helped CEO Indra Nooyi deliver over the last year on a number of crucial, marketing-based promises, including something of a turnaround for the company's flagship Pepsi brand, which is still duking it out with Coca-Cola and other beverage giants.

The departure of the company's Global Chief Marketing Officer from PepsiCo's Purchase, NY, HQ to Racine, Wis.-based S.C. Johnson—maker of Pledge, Glade and other household products—was disclosed in an internal memo at PepsiCo, the Wall Street Journal reported today.

Amin's exit opens up a top marketing job at PepsiCo just as the company has been reporting gains in sales and market share for Pepsi, having doubled down on marketing following the company's market share slip in recent years in U.S. sales even behind Diet Coke.

A PepsiCo veteran of more than two decades, Amin became PepsiCo CMO only last May. He was able to leverage a $600 million increase in Pepsi's annual marketing budget and a refocusing of spending on top brands including Pepsi and Gatorade into significant gains. "Salman has made contributions that have touched nearly every market in which we do business," said Zein Abdalla, president of PepsiCo, in the memo, according to Ad Age.

Amin also launched the first-ever global marketing campaign ("Live for Now") for Pepsi and inked pop star Beyonce to a $50 million partnership that included the halftime performance during last month's Super Bowl telecast.Continue reading...

Indra Nooyi may be starting to get comeuppance on her constant critics of the last few years. Today PepsiCo posted better-than-expected quarterly earnings and forecasted continued better times in 2013 as the once-embattled CEO continues to fight back from the low ebb of a couple years ago, when many investors were so disappointed with PepsiCo's performance that there were calls to split up the company a la Kraft.

"We enhanced the equity of our global brand," Nooyi said on a conference call Thursday morning. "We stepped up our game-in innovation by bringing to market more balanced offerings, from line extensions that bring additional locations to our existing products, and to new-product platforms that are truly transformational."

She cited, for instance, Quaker Real Medleys, a high-quality oatmeal with real fruits and nuts that was just named breakfast product of the year for 2012. Nooyi also was high on Pepsi Next, Starbucks Refreshers and Gatorade Energy Chews as examples of products and brands that are leveraging strong existing franchises with fresh approaches. Continue reading...

Slowly and perhaps surely, it looks like Pepsi is coming back against Coke in North America. By the time Beyonce headlines the Pepsi-sponsored halftime show during the telecast of the next Super Bowl in February, the brand may be celebrating more than her performance.

Pepsi had flat sales volume when taking into account a calendar shift during the third quarter, company executives told analysts on a conference call on Wednesday, but market share improved by volume and dollars. It's one of the first tangible signs that a significant recommitment to the brand by PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi, launched last year, is gaining some traction.

At the same time, Nooyi told the analysts that PepsiCo's overall organic revenue was only flat during the period on a 3-percent decline in volume, which she blamed on a 7-percent volume drop in non-carbonated drinks that on longer were profitable. "It's important that we don't chase unprofitable businesses and unprofitable categories," she said, according to the Wall Street Journal.Continue reading...

"Has Coca Cola ceased to be a mere brand and evolved into a historically important cultural artifact?" That question was tweeted by Duncan Jones, David Bowie's son who is better known these days as an award-winning filmmaker. Jones included a link to a BBC story on this week's historic return of the Coke brand to Myanmar, making its first delivery in more than 60 years.

"The Coca-Cola Company has been a part of the community fabric in countries around the world for decades," stated Muhtar Kent, Chairman and CEO, The Coca-Cola Company. "In every nation and city where we do business, our employees strive to create economic value and build sustainable communities. We are privileged to once again have the opportunity to play a role in building a better future with the people of Myanmar."

In addition to referencing the Coca-Cola brand's position as the #1 brand in Interbrand's 2011 Best Global Brands report, the BBC notes that there are now "only two countries where Coca-Cola is not officially bought or sold - Cuba and North Korea ... due to trade embargoes with the US."

PepsiCo, meanwhile, last month signed its own distribution agreement to distribute Pepsi and its other beverage brands in the former Burma, with CEO Indra Nooyi commenting, "Over time, we believe we can build a strong business in Myanmar and play a positive role in the country's continued development."

Whatever that future holds, Nooyi announced other news today that impacts her company's continued development and her own succession plans: the resignation of PepsiCo president John Compton.

He's being replaced by Geneva-based PepsiCo Europe CEO Zein Abdalla, who is relocating to company HQ in Purchase, NY, and in turn handing over his office and title to Enderson Guimaraes, the current President of PepsiCo's Global Nutrition Group.

Coca-Cola is busy spreading "Happiness" around the world as an Olympics sponsor, while Pepsi is counting on new cultural relevance through its music-based "Live for Now" campaign and by sponsoring the next Super Bowl halftime show.

But back at the home offices in Atlanta and in Purchase, N.Y., executives of each company are dealing with real-world strains including the increasing opposition of nutrition activists (including New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg), more competition, consumers' fading interest in soft drinks — and with each other. And those factors are contributing to important new dynamics for PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi and Coca-Cola CEO Muhtar Kent.

In Atlanta, Coca-Cola has just reorganized its C-suite and expanded the responsibilities of two senior executives, Steve Cahillane and Ahmet Bozer, creating an early horse race to succeed Kent in a few years. The move also is part of a consolidation of executive authority beneath Kent, who has been widely praised for his leadership of the company, boosting profits and swiping market share from PepsiCo since he became CEO in 2008.Continue reading...

How popular is the Pepsi brand in China? Exhibit A, above is an actual photo your scribe recently took in a grocery store on Shuicheng Road, Shanghai. Having recently moved here, it's fascinating to see how the cola wars are playing out on Chinese soil. 

Coca-Cola and PepsiCo are competing, hard, for the 1.3 billion mouths of China for a sales boost. The latest volley: PepsiCo just opened a new "green" production facility with "the capacity to produce approximately 15,000 tons of Lay's potato chips annually." Located in the central city of Wuhan, the facility is a platform to reach into populous central and western China. But raw capacity isn't all of PepsiCo's strategy to make China an even bigger market for the Lay's brand.

Pepsi's new Wuhan plant — its sixth such facility in China — comes with all the "green" bells and whistles. Adhering to Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) criteria, the factory aims to use a third less water and a fifth less power than earlier facilities. Though China is a major polluter, Pepsi's factory is in line with a move in the country toward sustainability, for both health and financial reasons. The snack food growth focus follows closely the brand's deal with China bottler Tingyi aimed at expanding PepsiCo's reach in the nation's beverage market, expected to be the world's largest by 2015.Continue reading...

PepsiCo and Twitter today announced a global music partnership, boosting Pepsi's music-based "Live for Now" marketing platform with Twitter campaigns to drive awareness and traffic to Pepsi's Live for Now music ambassadors such as Katy Perry.

The year-long deal between PepsiCo and Twitter includes a weekly music-oriented video series (watch episode one above) offering an overview of the artists (such as Katy Perry), music and music news trending that week on Twitter. Also on offer: Free music downloads (starting at 1pm ET today), plus weekly tweets from @pepsi about current music and free downloads from the Amazon.com MP3 Store to consumers who follow @pepsi and include the hashtag #PepsiMusicNOW. 

The partnership will also help spread the word about Pepsi's pop-up U.S. concert series this summer and fall. They will be announced first on Twitter and streamed live through Pepsi’s Twitter page and on PepsiPulse.com to fans everywhere.Continue reading...