Pepsi’s latest initiative to support small businesses is centered around elevating local restaurants and the role they play in building connections between people in local communities.

The campaign, dubbed “Local Eats Better With Pepsi,” kicked off last month with a spotlight on the hometown restaurant of singer Kelly Rowland, which featured the celebrity paying homage to her favorite spot in Houston and encouraging restaurant regulars across the country to nominate their own local haunts.

The winners get to be featured in their own Pepsi campaign and have their favorite meal on the menu renamed after them, while the restaurants gain promotional support from Pepsi, including professional photography and access to additional marketing channels.

The initiative represents Pepsi’s “huge strategic focus” on supporting small businesses this year and beyond, according to PepsiCo Global Foodservice CMO Scott Finlow. The Covid pandemic changed the way local restaurants do business, he said, leaving many without adequate resources to promote their shops.

“A lot of the smaller local restaurants, SMBs in general, have gone through a lot,” Finlow said. “Post-Covid, the consumers changed. Technology has been a real disruptor in their business as well. We have a huge opportunity as we listen to our customers to help them provide better tools and services to them. That’s something we’ve been really invested in and want to continue to support.”

We spoke with Finlow about the details of the new campaign, its strategic focus and how Pepsi intends to go big with supporting local restaurants in the coming year.

Chief Marketer: How did the “Local Eats Better with Pepsi” campaign first develop?

Scott Finlow, CMO of PepsiCo Global Foodservice: There’s a huge opportunity for the Pepsi brand to be connected closely with food. The majority of Pepsi’s occasions occur and are consumed with food…We also increasingly recognize the role that local restaurants play in communities and for people in terms of where they connect, where they celebrate, sometimes where they go for comfort, where they make memories, et cetera. That is really important and informs a lot of our thinking.

The other piece that’s important: a lot of the smaller local restaurants, SMBs in general, have gone through a lot. Post-Covid, the consumers changed. Technology has been a real disruptor in their business as well. We have a huge opportunity as we listen to our customers to help them provide better tools and services to them. That’s something we’ve been really invested in and want to continue to support. The way I think about it is, I want a local restaurateur to say that “my business is better with Pepsi.” Full stop. And that is the portfolio we offer, the services we offer, and people that we bring.

The program itself is a way for us to take the insight that at all these local restaurants, there are people who go to these restaurants and are their most loyal. They’re regular guests and consumers, they have favorite dishes, they love these restaurants and they play a really important role in their lives. And we want to celebrate those restaurants, those dishes and those people. We’re excited to launch it and we’re going to go really big on it—into next year and beyond. This is a huge strategic focus for the brand, for the business, and we’re committed to it.

CM: How would you say this differentiates the brand from competitors?

SF: I’ll talk about some of the specifics. We kicked off the Pepsi Local Eats program with singer Kelly Rowland, the initial ambassador, to share her story about the restaurant in Houston that played that role for her as a child and as she grew up. We’re taking that and building a full 360-support program that will offer consumers the opportunity to essentially nominate their restaurant and their dish.

Then we will reward the winners of those nominations, both the people as well as the restaurants, with social and outdoor content and media support. It celebrates them, builds awareness for those restaurants, drives traffic to those restaurants, builds awareness of the dish, celebrates those consumers, and builds an organic flywheel and connection between the people in the restaurants. The short answer is, we’re going to build tremendous awareness and visibility for those restaurants through this program by celebrating the people that are going there most frequently. And we’re going to do that across markets next year and we’re going to be supporting that pretty broadly.

CM: What consumer insights or research is this strong local focus based on?

SF: We want to build Pepsi’s—to use marketing terms—”situational salience” with food. And these local restaurants are a fantastic opportunity for us to live in that space where people are having their Pepsi with the food that they love, the people that they love and the places that they care about most. And then from a customer point of view, we want to raise awareness of these restaurants and drive traffic to these restaurants as well.

Now the other piece, in terms of the tools that we’re providing as part of this, is a range of other 360-support elements. One, we’re going to provide custom photography to these restaurants so that we can show their food on their table with their guests. That’s a challenge for a lot of restaurants. We can provide that for them across all the different channels where their consumers are engaging with them, whether it’s their own channels or aggregator and other media partners that we bring to them.

Why is this advantaged versus our competitor? It’s because that all adds up to a greater level of support. It’s more localized and unique for the restaurant, and it’s going to create more awareness and drive more traffic to these customers. And we’re going to do that in a locally-relevant way, but we’re going to do it with national scale. We are picking five geographically dispersed markets and then expand that beyond in 2025.

CM: Switching gears a bit: Food and beverage innovation falls under your purview. What are some food service innovations Pepsi is working on at the moment?

SF: I’ll stay on Pepsi and local restaurants. What consumers are asking for and looking for increasingly are zero-sugar options. And they’re looking for more flavor in their sparkling beverages and in their colas in particular. As part of our work with Bobby Flay and Better with Pepsi, the Pepsi Lime and Peach launches are performing really well and deliver on that flavor “opportunity proposition” that people are looking for.

And then, Pepsi Zero Sugar continues to be a huge focus of ours. It is not new, per se, in terms of innovation, but there’s a huge runway right now. With the awareness and trial levels on that brand, there’s lots of opportunity for us to connect that to more people. So you’re going to see a lot more coming on that. We’re going to be certainly challenging, shall I say, some of the norms out there, in order to make sure we’re giving people an opportunity to try Pepsi Zero Sugar and do it in our local restaurants as part of this program.