The New Pepsi Challenge: Start A Social Network
March 17th, 2008
I was searching for something else entirely tonight and came across that Pepsi announced today that it is launching a social network called Pepsi Youniverse. The site is not scheduled to launch for a while, but I went to the URL to see if it had any information and there it was live. I was able to sign up, log-in and check things out. So much for press releases.
Overall it is interesting. It is focused on football. Not U.S. football, but European “soccer” football. You understand immediately it is 100% focused on soccer because it assumes right from the sign-up that you live, breathe and die soccer, which I personally do not (but I played along to get an account).
I am not sure if Pepsi will find success with this or not. Will people who love soccer think Pepsi? How will they market? Can global brands like Pepsi use their brand name to build communities outside of their core product? I am not sure. I personally am starting to think there are too many social networks. Can they all find their niche?
