A Missed Target in the Soda Wars

I'm a bit of a challenge for my fellow advertisers when it comes to casting marketing messages my way by traditional methods. I'm a proud cord-cutter and don't do appointment television so it's almost impossible to catch my attention with TV ads. In the car, I switch stations so fast during commercial breaks that it's almost like an instinct. Forget newspaper and magazine ads too.

My recent post about the relationship between Santa Claus and the Coca-Cola Company made me consider the ways such a huge company (and Coke's competitors) could reach people like me. So I made a quick list of the main ways advertisements reach me in my personal life:

• Web ads based on browser activity.
• Preroll advertisements on YouTube and Hulu Plus.
• Ad breaks on my free Pandora account.
• Sponsored posts on Twitter and Facebook.
• Email subscriptions. 

I'm sure I'm missing a few but the list isn't very long - and these are all channels that are clearly not traditional methods. 

So back to Coke. They cover the globe with advertising and, to keep up, Pepsi does too. Their behemoth brands are instantly recognizable and the Soda Wars require each company to keep pushing. But as I thought more about how these companies reach people like me, I realized that it's been a while since I've seen any type of ad from Coke or Pepsi. I really racked my brain and came up empty. So, starting with a clean slate, I kept track of any exposure I had to these brands for 2 weeks. Here are the results:

First, Coke:

• I went to a movie in a theater that serves Coke products. After an seemingly endless run of ads, trivia and etiquette reminders, a Coke ad appeared just before the movie began. You know the one - ice cubes fall from the top of the frame, clinking along until they fill up the entire screen. Audio of a beverage being opened follows this image, which is then covered by a poured soda. 
• I happen to follow Coke on Tumblr, which I forgot because their posts get lost in the mix. But, a few weeks after the movie theater ad, I scrolled past the Coke Tumblr in my feed and a bright, red image that featured the white silhouette of the Coke logo definitely caught my eye.

That's all! Two instances in two weeks! 

Pepsi didn't perform much better:

• I spend a lot of time watching videos on YouTube and lately I've come to really appreciate the perspective given by drone videos. During my 2-week experiment, I happened to come across this video that featured drone footage of New York City's five boroughs. Here's a screen cap of something in that video that stood out: 

• I also find myself watching a lot of viral videos on YouTube, like this one that featured some cool, slo-mo footage of a room full of mouse traps being set off by ping pong balls. Turns out that this viral hit was made possible by it's sponsor, Pepsi Max. I know...it's not Pepsi, but it's in the family.

That's all for Pepsi. It's a tie. For the most part, I was a missed target during this observation of the Soda Wars. I'm not sure what to make of this. My only conclusion is that I'm not a very "visible" target by traditional means and, because I don't search for or visit the websites of these brands, I don't appear in new media cross hairs either. 

I know I'm not the only person that is exposed to ads exclusively by way of the methods I mentioned at the beginning of this post. Time will tell if big brands make adjustments and the Soda Wars impact my life once again.