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Comment by walrus01 | Hacker News Reader

If it had not been a complete and utter failure, the pitch deck would have been just another unremarkable example of marketing/PR fluffery, and wouldn't have been worth commenting on.

Doesn't look any different from media marketing I've seen for things that were successful.

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If you're looking for BS marketing-speak this is amateur work.

Want to see the pros? Sit back and watch Arnell take it (and Pepsi) to the next level: https://www.goldennumber.net/wp-content/uploads/pepsi-arnell....

There's literally a slide that references "light path with gravitational pull" -> "gravitational pull of Pepsi", "relativity of space and time" -> "Pepsi aisle."

Or the slide referencing the expansion of the universe to explain "the Pepsi orbits"

Among my favorite documents of all-time.

I had totally forgotten about this. I'm still not sure if it's a joke or not.

The fact that this cost 1M is what takes all the fun out of it. My guess is a mid-level designer scratched something out in a few weeks and then they said: well, shit; we need to make it look like we spent a lot of money and time on this. Get some nerds in here and have them write down some geometry phrases.

It's actually depressing once you think about it how much companies will pay for bullshit like this and very little for other things. Salesmanship I guess.

I actually find the 1M part to be the most funny.

Is this real? This is genuinely one of the funniest and most absurd documents I have ever seen in my life. I am crying I am laughing so hard. I genuinely hope someone pitched this to Pepsi

EDIT: I have confirmed this is from a real creative agency, but was purely for entertainment and was not a real pitch deck.

Apparently it's real!

http://www.newsweek.com/crazy-genius-brand-guru-peter-arnell...

  1 Light Year  = Pepsi Planet

  2 Light Years = Pepsi Galaxy

  8 Light Years = Pepsi Universe

Man, that's a small universe. To be fair though, it's clearly marked as an unfinished draft.

I much prefer the Pepsi Parsec as a unit of measurement.

In all seriousness, parsec is a horrific unit of measurement. It's really annoying how many non-SI units are used in Astrophysics literature. For me the most insane one is that some Asteroseismologists (study of variability in stars) use cycles per day as a unit of measurement as opposed to uHz (the conversion factor is around 11).

I think most of it arose from the idea that astronomy is about logging as much of the sky as you can in the most efficient way you can(there's a lot of it), and everyone else can put in the work to use their measurements in other disciplines. Sadly, that mindset went on to astrophysics where it's not too helpful.

From mocking Pepsi advertisements to discussing astrophysics in three comments.

I think it's more about the insane devotion to backwards compatibility (which rivals Linus Torvalds). I mean, the whole object colour thing (where the community discovered that their classification system was completely wrong) was handled by just reordering the classification (but keeping the names) so that old papers and catalogs could be used verbatim is true devotion.

> it's clearly marked as an unfinished draft.

Hey, I know some people with astronomy degrees that'll take a high six figure salary from a BS marketing agency to be their on staff astrophysicist. 4 hours of real work a month, tops.

If you have anything else remotely this funny could you please share it, I am having convulsions

Please, for the sake of this person's well-being, don't share any more slides!

I think Coke's pitch deck goes something like:

- Never acknowledge the existence of Pepsi.

- Always be classic.

- Always be timeless.

I think brands that work well do so because they keep a simple message and avoid the allure of self-justifying marketing people.

Their product is also simply better. More people prefer it. The best mousetrap is still a big lever.

Double blind tests say otherwise.

The double blind tests rely on the fact that a small dose of extra sweetness is more palatable. However, a large dose is cloying.

Also, they both taste like garbage. Drink coffee, instead.

You misspelled tea.

>Drink coffee, instead.

And now i'm anxious and sitting on the toilet.

Only when Pepsi rigged it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pepsi_Challenge#Criticism

Ironically, that slideshow PDF just about made my laptop's fan explode.

That's kind of the problem. It is, as you say, fluffery - designed to arouse desire rather than to inform. And we already have far too much of this.

Agreed. It was definitely a failure in execution not necessarily in vision. If done right it kinda sounds like a dope experience.

I'm highly skeptical that no matter how successful the logistics could have been, that I could ever describe anything involving Blink 182 as a "dope experience".

haha true

To be fair, the marketing was actually very successful. They got people to the event. I would call this a remarkable example of fluffery.

Yep. The only thing they didn't accomplish was disappearing with the cash at the end.

Step 1) Collect underpants

Step 2: ???

Step 3: Profit!

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