Discovering a young take on old traditions
▶ Pepsi Crossover revives traditional Chinese culture with innovation
As a signature young cultural brand, Pepsi has been dedicated to discovering bold spiritual culture.
Partnered with China Women’s Development Foundation (CWDF), PepsiCo’s marquee brand Pepsi kicked off
“Pepsi X Mom Handworks crossover” press conference on January 9 after setting up the Manchu paper-cutting cooperative in Dongliao, Northeast China’s Jilin Province on January 4.
Mom Handworks is a sustainable public welfare project initiated by CWDF in September 2016, which aims to promote rural indigent women’s working skills and protect intangible cultural heritage.
Joining hands with CWDF in 2019, Pepsi established “Yao Embroidery Cooperative of Youxi Town” in Ruyuan, South China’s Guangdong Province, which implemented an innovative public welfare model. Manchu paper-cutting, a unique civil art of Dongliao, was listed as intangible cultural heritage of the province in 2007.
Xu Haiou, the local representative of Mom Handworks has high hopes on the Manchu paper-cutting cooperative of Dongliao town. “Local mothers will have extra incomes for their families and may no longer need to work in the city,” Xu said. The Mom Handworks made achievements in not only improving local women’s employment but become a socializing place for local women. Lilly Yip, chief marketing officer of PepsiCo APAC, said that “The project has helped the handcraft women promote their self-satisfaction and find the meaning of their life.” Pepsi regards supporting originality creativity of Chinese art as responsibility and believes the traditional Chinese cultural art needs to be seen, to be known, and to be inherited by youth. “We want to build a bridge to bring the tradition in a very modern way for young people to have a very fresh look into their own culture,” Yip said.
Pepsi also tries to integrate these traditional Chinese arts into its products, bringing a deconstructive interpretation of traditional Chinese culture to youth in a palatable way.
Shopping bags embroidered with exquisite Yao embroidery patterns and limited Pepsi cans with Yao embroidery elements are displayed in the news conference as well as on the Pepsi Tmall ecommerce platform. They become popular items among young consumers.
Some firms took 2019 as a challenging year while for Yip, a brand leader, she regarded the challenge as excitement and new opportunity for Pepsi.
“The challenges and new technology enable us as a brand to bring a lot of excitement to consumers,” Yip said.
In 2020, the power of innovation will drive Pepsi go further.
“Innovation is the strong engine for our growth in 2020,” Yip said. “PepsiCo X Mom Handworks” project is part of PepsiCo’s signature Chinese New Year marketing program “Bring Happiness Home (BHH)” campaign.
From Yip’s perspective, BHH’s core is to find the essence of home from different facets, reviving young people’s reminiscences about home.
PepsiCo’s BHH CNY campaign has been running for nine consecutive years.