WITH PEPSI! WITH PLEASURE!

During joint strategic sessions with the brand’s marketing team, we studied youth lifestyle and identified a sharp sociocultural conflict. In Uzbekistan, it has historically been common to share large portions of one dish with the whole group. This puts Gen Z in front of a choice: satisfy their personal taste preferences or give in to social pressure from the group — “order what everyone else is ordering”. The solution came from the very nature of national cuisine: every Uzbek dish has dozens of variations in ingredients and flavors. This way, young people can remain part of the group by ordering the same dish, while keeping their individuality by choosing the exact version that fits them. We took this cultural code as the foundation of the communication platform: the brand began to communicate the right to personal choice. We expanded this idea into a large-scale ecosystem consisting of several key stages: Image campaign: we launched a series of creatives showing the courage of young audiences to make their own choice among friends, emphasizing that with our product, every variation of a dish becomes even tastier. National promo: to support the campaign, we launched a promo where participants competed for unique painted lagans — national tableware in the brand’s style — and other valuable prizes. Pepsi Food Fest: we brought the platform offline and held a large-scale gastro festival where, together with the brand, we set 3 world records at once: the largest lavash, the largest number of samsas and the largest lagman. Pepsi Taste Challenge: for the first time, we changed the historical mechanics of the legendary test. Instead of a regular drink test, we came directly to HoReCa venues and invited the audience to choose the perfect partner for the dish they were already eating.