PEPPERME.COM / ONLINE ANIMATED TV SERIES

BRANDED CONTENT & ENTERTAINMENT

We created a world about 4 animated kids and their dog who are all completely aware of their roles as `marketing tools' for Dr Pepper. They were so ridiculously up-front with their roles that the brand gave them (us) the freedom to develop their characters as a group of begrudged 'influencers' who could care less about selling anything.

After all, it was just soda, Dr Pepper was on the bottom shelf at the time with zero promotional spend, and it really is a taste you’d either love or hate.

So our only goal was to get people to give it a try.

All of that out of the way, our ‘marketing puppets’ could just go ahead and get on with their cartoon lives, in which audiences were invited to join.  

We called this world Dr Pepper Solves ALL Your Problems. 

We had a ridiculously limited budget, but the agency we worked for entrusted my partner and I (we were junior/mid in our careers) to lead the campaign. So we dove into this brand launch as a labor of love and we led the creation of each and every element. It’s here because it’s an example of how I prefer to work.

This campaign went on to reposition Dr Pepper across Europe, vaulting it into one of the most successful soft drink brands for our audience at the time.

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We structured it as an entertainment property, we created a wealth of content that was supported by the brand as 'sponsor.'

Besides traditional TV, print and outdoor executions to promote it, my partner and I were also given full reign to completely redesign packaging, design and program games and create a cohesive brand story across every touchpoint, leading to an immersive website. 

The campaign was designed to operate as an entertainment property on behalf of the brand.
There was never a direct sell for Dr Pepper and the product was rarely referenced by the characters.

Instead, Dr Pepper was consumed prominently in the comic's storyline, a natural part of the character's world.

It was an immersive world where consumers could interact with the brand at every touchpoint
- from packaging to TV to interactive to outdoor. The comic strip-based campaign played off of the daily frustrations experienced by a bunch of cartoon friends. It was aimed at an older, cynical teen market that could identify with a quirky and irreverent outsider brand.

PRODUCT REBRAND / REPACKAGING

The first point of communication, cans and bottles, packaging and in-store materials were designed to integrate with the campaign, each carrying the URL and campaign line.

My partner and I designed the cans and they became the first to ever use a 'strike-through' process, where bare metal was intentionally left exposed and coated with enamel (a process which is now in wide use.) It had never been done before by the bottler.
 

CREATING THE CHARACTERS OF PEPPERME:

Our target were teens, ages 13-18. We needed to reach this younger group, yet not alienate
the more savvy, older teens. So we decided to base the campaign on a world of animated characters. While the overall look and feel seemed childish, there would always be a
knowing wink to the older teens. We could also dial the subject matter up or down depending on what was needed.

We created initial character sketches by hand. We tried to create character personalities
that we thought the target would relate to. Basically, that meant cynical, dissociative,
anddisgruntled with a very adolescent sense of humor.

MEET THE CHARACTERS OF DR PEPPER:

PEPPERME.COM

The website had the distinction of hosting what is regarded as the world's first 'live brand blog' - where the brand's characters actually responded to users in real time with unique, custom-created content. Though it sounds like a logistical nightmare, we created an infrastructure that enabled us to interact with questions, requests and submitted imagery which we would then post online. This created repeat visits and created a buzz around the campaign that was unparalleled at the time. 

The site went on to be voted 'favorite entertainment website' in all of Holland by the
brand's target.

LIVE, UPDATED BLOG

The site hosted what's considered to be the first ‘live blog’
ever created by a brand. My partner and I updated a brand character's online diary and manually uploaded a pic of her outfit and mood every day, depending on real time events
and weather. Users could email her (the team) directly for advice – and thanks to
a streamlined approval process, they ended up answering thousands of them on the site. 

PEPPERME GAMES

Many mini games and applications were created to help keep the campaign fun,
surprising and entertaining for our audience.

DRESS D — AN EMAILABLE GAME

We created an emailable game where users could help a brand character choose from
72 unique outfit combinations.

SHAVE THE WORLD

Character Helmut was passionate about his pet electric razor, so we invented this game to let fans help him shave stereotypical icons from around the world, fueled by Dr Pepper. 

LITTLE DUDE EXPOSES YOU

Fans could upload pictures of themselves into Little Dude's darkroom, which were then custom ‘doctored’ by the team and re-posted in a gallery. We received hundreds of new images a day and would choose and alter about 20 per week, guaranteeing fresh content and repeat visits as well as a lot of late nights at work.

ONLINE ENGAGEMENT

Various online engagement such as online videos and comics were created to help turn the campaign into an entertainment property.

Choose-your-own adventure videos 

Fans could decide which drink to choose at a turning point in the story,
which effects the outcome of the story. 

ONLINE COMICS

Fans could keep following the characters’ lives online through scrollable comic strips with ambient sounds.

PEPPERME IN THE PHYSICAL WORLD

The online comics were then turned into outdoor posters that chronicled the characters’ lives.

OVERSIZED COMIC STRIP OOH POSTERS

COMIC STRIP TAPE

In certain countries, this is all they would be able to afford. We had to find the most inexpensive, yet impactful way to deliver the “Solves ALL Your Problems” storyline.
So stories were printed on rolls of tape which could be used anywhere to disrupt other media.  

MERCHANDISING

A range of products were created for in-store merchandising to generate more revenue.

BROADCAST TV TEASERS

We produced three, 10-second ‘blipverts.’ The aim of these ‘awareness’ blipverts was to create enough mystery to drive the target online.

PROMOTIONAL BANNERS

Designed to appeal to a teenage sense of humor, banner click through rates were way above average and kept a steady stream of traffic to pepperme.com throughout the year.

ONLINE ANIMATED TV SERIES

After a successful year, the campaign evolved to another level and the animated characters
left their online home to venture into the world on an epic roadtrip in search of their ‘maker’...Dr Pepper. Our small team of four created and operated the puppets in each film. 

My partner and I voiced all characters...in 4 languages.

STORYBOARDS OF THE FILMS:

MAKING OF THE PUPPETS:

The campaign successfully carved out a niche for the Dr Pepper brand, increasing market share while also being voted 'favorite website' by the target. 

The Pepperme campaign won several international industry awards.

But our favorite, by far, was this “Kids Choice” award. Judged by Dutch middleschool kids, the Gouden Apenstaart was a nationwide competition where kids could vote for their favorite websites.

Out of hundreds of sites that were submitted to the competition, from pure entertainment to educational to corporate-sponsored, kids voted Pepperme.com as the #1 most popular website in the Netherlands.

As a reward, our team received this big bronze monkey.