The Pepsi Refresh Project

The Pepsi Refresh Project

Contemporary Business 508

Dr. Cheryl Molyneaux

Sabrina Harris

August 26, 2012

ABSTRACT

PepsiCo, Inc. is a global food, snack and beverage company. The Company's brands include Quaker Oats, Tropicana, Gatorade, Lay's, Pepsi, Walkers, Gamesa and Sabritas. Pepsico Inc. Pepsi-Cola was created in the late 1890s by Caleb Bradham, a New Bern, N.C. pharmacist, and in 1965. PepsiCo was founded by Donald Kendall, President and CEO of Pepsi-Cola and Herman Lay, Chairman and CEO of Frito-Lay with the merger of the two companies (Pepsi Live, 2011) . In 2010, the PepsiCo organization initiated the Refresh Project to award $20 million in grants to individuals, business & non-profits that promote a new idea that has a positive impact on their community or the nation (Pepsico, 2010). The Pepsi Refresh Project funded over 1000 ideas that sparked change in the nation and there were of 80 million votes were casts on the Pepsi website (Pepsi Live, 2011).

1. Evaluate the reasons Social Media Marketing has become exceedingly popular among businesses of all sizes.

Social Media has become extremely popular with it being estimated that most social media users use some form of social media 11+ hours per week with the popularity continuing to grow (Ervin, 2011). One reason for social media marketing’s popularity is that the use of social media is free and with the sign up on Facebook, the business has the ability to attract the 400 million members of Facebook to their page, having this amount of exposure for free always a company to decrease their marketing budget and use those saved funds to increase other areas of the business. Another reason for the popularity of social media is the increased access to the offerings of the business via social media has the ability to increase usage of the business. Lastly, the increase in social media’s popularity in it provides the ability to form new partnerships for the business (Kurtz, 2012).

2. Analyze the advantages and disadvantages of Social Media Marketing for business entrepreneurs.

The advantages of social media for business entrepreneurs are:

a. Social Media is free which provides the entrepreneur access to free advertising and the ability to grow the business by gaining access to the over 400 million members of Facebook alone.

b. Social Media gives the entrepreneurs access globally as they would have access to users who are from around the world.

c. Social