PepsiCo Foods launched the FLVR channel on TikTok in early 2023. In just six months, the channel reached 1 million followers, becoming one of the largest brand entertainment communities in the food sector on TikTok, and the most popular PepsiCo brand on the platform globally. The program is now also available on YouTube, Instagram, Amazon FireTV, and online, featuring over 1,750 TikTok-native content snippets, directly addressing Generation Z's audience.
The experience of creating and developing this unorthodox brand channel inspired several interesting ideas that can help marketers in any industry who seek to accelerate growth and transform a brand without overtly selling to the target audience.
Since Generation Z spends about 6.6 hours a day consuming media, they easily adapt to content they haven’t actively sought out. Specifically created as an antidote to push-based marketing fatigue, FLVR was designed to elevate our brands' culinary authority and step outside our core categories and consumption occasions.
Marketers wanting to follow this strategy must firmly believe in their vision. You will need to establish an editorial firewall and stick to it. At PepsiCo, FLVR acts as an effective vehicle for brands, unlike a car driven by our brands. Get recommendations and creative ideas from your brands but retain the final say in all content decisions. Once the platform runs, incorporate social media performance data into your editorial meetings to inform decisions and build on what resonates with your audience.
To preserve authenticity, we knew it was crucial to fill the platform through co-creation with micro-influencers. This meant handing over the keys to creators whom our target audience loves to follow. Consumers can immediately detect inauthentic fakes, so in this strategy, bigger wins come from taking bigger risks. We provided micro-authors with open briefs, allowing them to remain organic while enabling them to create their own content and voice. This approach worked for other PepsiCo brands, such as Doritos Crash the Super Bowl and Lay's Do Us A Flavor, and partly because we give influencers control, inspiring content that still fits the brand. Snacks are often part of what consumers fondly remember about some of the best—and messiest—unscripted moments in life.
As physical cookbooks have been replaced by digital devices, there was an opportunity to extend FLVR's reach to television. Rather than running campaigns parallel across all media types, we aimed to elevate the FLVR strategy by moving social content to Amazon FireTV. Consumers could watch videos from content creators and then directly order Frito-Lay products on Amazon. Expanding into this new platform continued to grow FLVR's audience, viewership, engagement, and channels, especially among avid Generation Z home cooks.