Some of you have probably already heard that PepsiCo International, a company with revenues more than $39 billion, is going to launch a social networking site focused on football later in April starting from Europe. The Beta-version of Pepsi Youniverse is already available for football fans, allowing to create your Visual DNA and compare it to those of big football stars like Lampard, Henry, Messi, Ronaldinho, and, of course, Beckham. The Visual DNA is an Imagini Holdings Ltd invention – it is a personality test, you have to answer the questions by choosing the appropriate images to get your psychographic description. Pepsi Youniverse’ Visual DNA describes what type of a football fan you are, using questions like ‘The best thing about being a footballer is…’. My closest match, according to this test, is Lampard, and football is definitely a huge part of my life (they don’t ask you whether you’re interested in it or not, it is assumed that you are). After launching this site Pepsi plans to create even more networks, focused on music and ‘hopes and dreams’. There already exists another Beta-version (I am surprised how it’s got through the alpha test, though) which I personally find more interesting, but of which almost no one heard about (at least Google search makes me think so). It is another Pepsi social network targeting specifically the Pepsi Max drinkers. I liked it a lot not only because I had to choose what type of man I am (Visual DNA again), select the contents of my car and then select my gender (female, what a surprise), but because it lets you merge your email (whether you use Gmail, Yahoo or Hotmail), other networks (Facebook, Flickr), RSS subscriptions, and that’s not the whole list. It also includes space for blogging, digital storage, videos, and standard social networking site options. And as we are using more and more different sites, with even more appearing almost every day, merging it not a bad idea at all.
But let’s get back to Pepsi: all these networks could definitely become very powerful research and marketing tools. If people do really need them. How many teenage football fans and for how long would be amused by comparing their personal profiles to Ronaldinho’s? Are these investments going to pay off?
