Research On Youth Subculture And Brand Communication Of Pepsi

Since the World War II, so many dazzling phenomenon of youth subcultures, such as rogue youth, skinheads, punk, hippie, yuppie, th lost generation and the beaten generation, have emerged endlessly in Europe and the United States. From the beginning of 1950s, CCCS (Center for Contemporary Cultural Studies) did some pioneering research on youth subculture phenomenon. They were concerned how teenagers challenged the dominant culture through the stylized and symbolic alternative, in order to establish their identity and cultural way of subsidiary. As Dick Hebodige said, youth subculture will inevitably be incorporated for it's popularity and best-selling feature. The nature of profit pursuit has led commerce to be the first one intervented in the youth subculture field. Pepsi is just one successful brand with a whole century honour, which has borrowed the influence of youth subculture and positioned itself as the choice of a new generation.Combinating with youth subcuture theories, this thesis did a case study of the Pepsi brand communication with qualitative research methods, mainly analysed and interpreted the Pepsi brand dimensions of the historical development. The thesis divided Pepsico's development into three phrases: the start-up period of the early 60 years, the rising period from 1960s to 1990s and the global matured period after 1990s , meanwhile supported by its brand communication strategy in China. The thesis managed to prove that, since 1960s, pepsico has used appropriate strategies to meet the youth subculture and successfully shape the brand image loved by the young rebellious. While in the new millennium, the pepsi brand communication and advertising strategies are more in line with the'fragmentation and globalization'development trend of youth subculture and always maintain a good brand image. The thesis is altogether divided into six parts. The first part introduces the current research on this topic, giving a clear picture of the research topic, research issue and the research methods. The second part explains Pepsi's advertising and development before 1960s and describes gap-relations between advertising and culture from a cultural perspective . The third part explores how Pepsi took advantage of youth subculture movement to set up the ditch cola and build brand image by studying the ads text in the United States between 1960s and 1980s. The fourth part focuses on differences of marketing and advertising strategy between Pepsi and Coca-Cola in China, interprets the focus of cultural relations between PepsiCo and Coca-Cola , and the subcultural patterns of Pepsi in China after 1980s. The fifth part proves Pepsi's global unified advertising strategy and work has promoted the generation on subculture. The last one is conclusion.