The Joester Loria Group – PepsiCo

Co-founder, Executive Vice President and COO Joanne Loria says the relationship between JLG and Pepsi has been a strong one, bolstered by the agency’s extensive expertise in licensing world-class brands. “We have had a longstanding partnership with Pepsi as their exclusive licensing agency of record for the U.S. and Canada,” she says. “The role of licensing, especially with CPG brands such as Pepsi, has shifted in recent years as licensing has become an increasingly important marketing tool for brands. A successful licensing program can generate incremental revenue that funds future marketing initiatives, but also through high profile collaborations with prestigious brands it can generate buzz and awareness amongst key influencers.”

Since 1999, JLG has developed winning licensing strategies for some of the largest brands in the world. In addition to the Pepsi portfolio of brands, JLG has successfully executed successful brand extension programs for Kellogg’s, Corona, Modelo, Entenmann’s, Jeep and Animal Planet, as well as evergreen properties including The World of Eric Carle and Care Bears to emerging personalities in the growing blogosphere such as Aimee Song “Song of Style.” For the PepsiMoji campaign, JLG once again delivers a strategic licensing program that dovetails with core brand objectives, creating excitement with consumers through retail experiences and fun consumer products.

Unique Approach

Pepsi has been more than one of the world’s most popular soft drink brands – it is a global pop culture icon, and a big part of that has been the brand’s ability to stay at the forefront of emerging cultural trends. “The PepsiMoji campaign will resonate strongly with Millennials and Generation Z as well, thanks to social media and the way it gives consumers more fun ways to express themselves,” Loria says. The emojis feature a wide variety of designs but are unified by the iconic globe shape and a blue, red and white color scheme that is the essence of the Pepsi brand.

“One of the most impactful ways of developing brand extensions for global brands like Pepsi is to look for opportunities where you can tie into a particular marketing platform that can also translate to licensed products,” Loria says. “With emojis, that’s exactly what happened.”

With a few hundred proprietary and unique PepsiMoji designs to choose from, consumers can find one to suit their mood or interests in virtually any situation, which lends itself well to licensed products “It’s a really cool custom approach for Pepsi,” Loria says.

The Next Level

To help drive that approach to the next level, JLG has partnered Pepsi with some exceptional companies for exclusive collaborations. These collaborations launched  at New York City’s innovative retail gallery STORY in late spring, with a curated collection of merchandise featuring PepsiMoji characters reimagined as graphic patterns appearing on items such as fashion accessories, tumblers and tabletop essentials.

Among the key licensing partnerships JLG has secured for the PepsiMoji campaign are Casetify, who is producing customizable phone cases that can turn consumers’ Instagram, Facebook and personal photos into durable cases that also incorporate the Pepsi Emojis; Legendary New York City bakery Eleni’s Cookies for an exclusive collection of homemade PepsiMoji cookies, and AVE DEE who has created a line of fashionable fanny packs bearing the Pepsi Emoji graphics.

That won’t be the full extent of the “Say It With Pepsi” licensing campaign, however. Loria says “JLG will be working with existing Pepsi licensees such as C-Life, Body Rags and Odd Sox for apparel and accessory collections that will be available in stores and online later this summer. An exclusive collection of lifestyle products featuring Pepsi Emojis will be made available on Pepsi’s own ecommerce site Shop.Pepsi.com, as well.”