Pepsi to Skip Super Bowl Ads in Favor of $20M Social Media Campaign

The Super Bowl is consistently one of the most-watched television programs of the year. Even as network television viewership continues to erode — thanks to cable, timeshifting and Internet options — advertisers are still willing to pay big ad dollars for a spot on Super Bowl Sunday.

That could be changing. For the first time in 23 years, Pepsi will not have any ads in the Super Bowl. Instead, the company will be spending $20 million on a social media campaign it’s calling The Pepsi Refresh Project.

Rather than spending money on a Super Bowl ad, Pepsi will launch the Pepsi Refresh Project on January 13, 2010. At that time, users can submit their ideas to Pepsi for ways to refresh their communities, making the world a better place.

Voting will begin on February 1, 2010, and the projects that get the most votes will be funded by Pepsi. Pepsi expects to spend $20 million to fund thousands of projects.

Read the whole Mashable article here.