Pepsi takes its football stars ‘Into Africa’ for global football campaign

Pepsi announced the launch of its inspirational African themed football campaign, which takes its team of global football superstars out of the world’s biggest football stadiums and in to the heart of the African Serengeti.
The global campaign is fronted by eight of the world’s greatest footballers; Lionel Messi, Thierry Henry, Frank Lampard, Ricardo Kaká, Fernando Torres, Didier Drogba, Michael Ballack and Andrei Arshavin and the key elements of the innovative campaign are designed to engage football fans everywhere as well as enable them to drive positive change in the African continent.
Current World Player of the year, Lionel Messi, commented on his involvement in the new campaign: “I have really enjoyed working on this year’s football campaign as it’s something completely different from previous years. The ad takes the Pepsi team into Africa which is a land of different cultures, styles and traditions. As with all Pepsi football campaigns you can look forward to the usual thrills and skills but this year you’ll see a bit of an African flair as well.”
A key component of the football campaign is a global collaboration with EDUN LIVE, the T-shirt division of the ethical fashion brand EDUN.  This “grow to sew” African-produced tee was designed exclusively for Pepsi.  EDUN Apparel was created in 2005 by Bono and his wife Ali Hewson, the company’s mission being to help build Africa as a viable source of production for fashion products.
Commenting on the relationship Mr. Muhannad Saleh, Sales and Marketing Director at PepsiCo-Jordan said; “When looking to create a T-Shirt for the campaign we wanted to create something that consumers would be happy to wear from a style standpoint, but also be proud to wear in the knowledge that they are helping developing regions in Africa. The Pepsi EDUN LIVE T-Shirt has enabled us to do this by combining the African influences that will be present throughout the campaign with the names of our superstar players to create the alternative football fashion T-Shirt for 2010.”
Christian Kemp-Griffin, Chief Mission Officer of EDUN said; “Working with Pepsi is an extremely exciting project for us. With this collaboration, Pepsi has demonstrated a clear determination to look at how they can best use their campaigns to benefit people around the world. Together we have been able to combine football and fashion to create something that will appeal to fans globally as well as enable us to support needed trade in Africa.”
What’s more, the official soundtrack for the new campaign, ‘Oh Africa,’ was created with a purpose initiative at its centre, as a portion of the proceeds from the sale of the track will go towards helping underprivileged African youth. The catchy and energetic football anthem, now available for download worldwide, incorporates 16 aspiring music artists from around the world, multi-platinum selling Artist Akon and Grammy-nominated Keri Hilson.
Mr. Saleh from Pepsico Jordan aslo commented: “As part of our wider  campaign we discovered that today’s consumers are born of a generation of passion, purpose and creativity. They want to and can have an impact on the world to make it a better place. As such we wanted to use our best platform, football, to connect with fans everywhere in two ways; firstly to foster our consumers’ unrivalled passion for the game and secondly to enable them to have a positive impact on the world in a fun and engaging way. In the past our campaigns have focused on the entertainment value in football. This year we hope through our collaboration with EDUN, the Didier Drogba Foundation, and Akon’s Konfidence Foundation on the ‘Oh Africa’ track, our consumers will agree that the 2010 football campaign is our most inspiring, engaging and rewarding yet.”
To find out more on Pepsi’s 2010 football campaign, see exclusive photos and hear the news first, simply log on to www.pepsiarabia.com .