Dive Brief:

• Pepsi ran a two-part campaign in the Netherlands that encouraged people to take a blind taste test comparing Coke and Pepsi and then retargeted them through programmatic digital out-of-home advertising, Digital Signage Connection reported. 
• Working with agency Omnicom, Pepsi ran the retargeting effort on Exterion Media screens at shopping malls in Amsterdam, Utrecht, the Hague and Rotterdam. The locations were chosen because the malls contained a supermarket where shoppers could easily stop by after seeing an ad. 
• Pepsi partnered with Broadsign DSP firm Platform 161 for the contextual programmatic digital OOH component of the campaign. The soft drink maker leveraged Resono mobile beacon technology to create a unique ID for users logged in from several apps, which would trigger the digital OOH displays when a taste tester walked into a mall. Once the ad was triggered, the entire mall network displayed a Pepsi Max ad, and since the campaign was programmatic, Pepsi only paid for the placement when the ad played, per Digital Signage Connection.

Dive Insight:

Pepsi debuted the "Pepsi Challenge" taste test against rival Coke in 1975, but the new Dutch campaign shows how the soft drink marketer is leveraging digital to modernize the experiment and tie it more closely to the point of sale. The effort taps into a few trendy marketing channels, including beacons and digital out-of-home (OOH). OOH formats like mall signage and billboards have traditionally been static, but the advent of location-tracking mobile technologies, better data streams and dynamic digital displays have revitalized interest in the category.    

Pepsi isn't alone in using digital OOH to target hyper-specific consumer groups. Delta Air Lines teamed up with Equinox Fitness in July on a campaign using real-time flight data to encourage international travelers arriving at Los Angeles International Airport to "sweat away" their jet lag. The "#SweatLag" campaign included digital billboards near LAX that displayed messages targeting passengers that arrived on Delta red-eye flights with their flight number and city of origin. 

PepsiCo announced earlier this year that it was increasing its marketing spend and investing more in digital with its savings under the GOP tax plan. The new digital OOH campaign in the Netherlands is part of Pepsi's new strategy for boosting its brand and competing with Coke. OOH campaigns can bring a 24% increase in brand trust, 106% increase in perception of brand quality and a 275% boost in customer loyalty, when brands dedicate 15% or more of their media budgets to OOH, according to Rapport, IPG Mediabrands' OOH division.