The ink was barely dry on PepsiCo’s new multi-year partnership deal as exclusive soft drink supplier at BC Place stadium when the company announced Monday that it had ousted arch rival Coca-Cola from Vancouver’s Rogers Arena stronghold.
The new partnership with the Vancouver Canucks NHL team and Rogers Arena gives Pepsi the exclusive beverage and snack rights (through its Lay’s brand) for the next five years. It also gives Pepsi branding and advertising placements at all concessions, restaurants, bars and other outlets in the arena; branded cups, LED rink board signage; 100-level concourse and spectator stairwell branding. Lay’s chips were already sold there, but now have “official potato chip,” status for the Vancouver Canucks and Rogers Arena
“The partnership is a major win because of the sheer volume of visitors to Rogers Arena,” said Robb Hadley, director of marketing for PepsiCo Beverages Canada. “[Pepsi] will have exposure to more than 1.3 million consumers annually at more than 100 events at the arena.”
Hadley declined to put a dollar amount on the contract.
Pepsi also donated $10,000 and a pair of Canucks home game tickets to the Canucks Center for Kids Fund to mark the new partnership.
Andrea Shaw, founder and managing partner at the Twentyten Group, and formerly vice president sponsorship, Sales & Marketing for Vancouver 2010 Winter Games, said Pepsi is harnessing the power of an integrated sponsorship strategy with the signing of the deal.
“It’s a multiple-brand play, involving multiple business units and those are the kinds of partnerships where a company really can start to achieve return on objectives and return on investment,” said Shaw. “There is brand exposure, hospitality, employee motivation, client motivation and multiple reasons why companies get involved in sponsorships – it’s a very viable medium right now.”
Pepsi has been official supplier to BC Place stadium since it opened in 1986, while up until now, Coke had a similar deal in place at Rogers Arena (the former GM Place).
