Pepsi set to ambush Obama

Is it just me, or does today feel like “game day”?

All week I’ve been watching and listening to the growing hype around the swearing-in ceremony…and taking nothing away from the import of the event itself…the way the media is packaging it…it feels like sports coverage.

And look, this “game” even has “unofficial” sponsors

This Pepsi banner was the first thing I saw today when I opened my browser and landed on Yahoo!

This type of campaign would be called “Ambush Marketing” if it were possible to “sponsor” the President of the U.S. Even so, Pepsi looks like an Obama sponsor, and in my opinion, has done an excellent job of “activation”.

Funny, I had heard earlier this week that some folks think the latest Pepsi campaign, Refresh Everything, and Pepsi’s new logo, are ripping off Obama’s brand.

A Pepsi spokesman said that Pepsi did research just like Obama’s team, and got the same results. They found that Americans “thirst” for change. So why not align with the Obama team, which has all the momentum heading in this direction?

When you click through to the landing page you’ll see that Pepsi has done a nice job of meshing its message with that of the incoming President.

Pretty slick stuff.

One thing the folks at Pepsi seem to have missed, however, is paid search. I just typed “inauguration day 2009″ into Google…and Pepsi was nowhere to be found. Too bad. They could have used some of the money they saved on rights fees to do a little Paid Search.

Maybe next year.