How Dr Pepper overtook Pepsi to land the #2 spot in the US

Dr Pepper has just grabbed the #2 spot in the US soda category, held by Pepsi since 1985. Given the brand has been spending half as much as Pepsi on advertising, this coming-from-behind story deserves a closer look.

Last week, the WSJ neatly summed up Dr Pepper’s growth drivers as “hefty marketing, novel flavors and TikTok videos.” Long-term share data shows the brand growing share slowly but steadily since 2005, so Dr Pepper was onto something well before social. That said, our internal models and social tracking suggest that:

• Growing TikTok activity did lift demand for Dr Pepper in the past 18 months

• This acceleration is likely to be prolonged by community-led “virtuous cycles” in the foreseeable future

Let’s look at some of the ways in which TikTok helps Dr Pepper:

(1) “We are a community of non-conformists who have seen the light.”

Contrary to just a few years ago, the most impactful—and often largest—source of brand impact on social comes from content and comments viewed as independent (i.e. organic, not initiated by brands).

Thanks to many years of patient community building on- and offline, Dr Pepper boasts fans who see themselves as non-conformists “in the know,” happy to enlighten the “sheeple” stuck on commercial alternatives. This makes them more likely to advocate in the form of UGC, comments, offline word-of-mouth, and explains why #DrPepperIsSuperior is a thing.

TV ads like this nurture the mystique of a community of like-minded underdogs instantly getting along regardless of age, race, or gender.

Other brands aiming for such a ‘community feel’ need to make good use of their owned channels, esp. TikTok and increasingly Instagram, where communities come together to discuss, share opinions, and fraternise in the comments of deeply engaging posts.

(2) Frequent launches of distinct flavours no doubt played a role in Dr Pepper’s growth… But lots of brands have introduced lots of interesting flavours over the years, so why has it been working so well for Dr Pepper, and why now?

• An activist community keen to advocate (see point 1)

• TikTok allows even tiny accounts to go viral, as long as the content is deeply engaging

• New launches offer plenty of UGC opportunities: shopping in-store, opening at home, tasting, reviewing etc.

(3) When it isn’t the brand innovating, it’s the broadening fan base that (re-) invents old recipes featuring Dr. Pepper. This creates excitement around the brand, opportunities to try, film themselves trying it, and post their reactions to it.

(4) For brands with a base of devoted fans, nothing works better than rumours like “Dr Pepper is about to be discontinued.” It popped up on social in late Feb, and whether or not it was orchestrated by the brand, the result was the highest ever spike in searches, hundreds of posts about the rumour, and millions of shows of love (phew!).

(5) As brand popularity and trial grow, UGC posts multiply, further lifting demand and…searches, including on TikTok. These social searches help even posts from small accounts perform well, and motivate savvy (large) creators to post about the brand for free. Why for free?

To the question “Who/what influences the influencers?”, one can safely say the profit motive is at/near the top: featuring fast rising brands in their posts makes them look on-trend and attract new followers to be monetised in the future. ⬇️ This is how virtuous cycles spin even faster without extra spending.

(6) Dr Pepper’s owned content is strong, among the best in drinks. Even if its owned engagement has been dwarfed by the organic earned it received, its owned stories play a central role energising the community. Their enthusiasm then radiates on social (via comments, UGC) and beyond (e.g., word of mouth, wearing of merch etc.).

There are over a dozen other dynamics that deserve consideration (e.g., how Dr. Pepper gets featured in cocktails, mocktails, food recipes, restaurant accounts, the importance of merch, ice cream collabs, Dr Pepper Museum etc.), but we’ll close by highlighting that paid influence didn’t play much of a role. Having looked at its 100 largest Earned posts, only an estimated 5-10% were from paid creators. Most of the impact now comes from huge organic posts like this one.*

Dr Pepper’s success on TikTok has been years in the making: thanks to patient community building both on- and offline, the brand was primed to take off as soon as TikTok offered its community a chance to write its love letters—and engage with each other’s.

While success doesn’t happen overnight, social media makes it possible for all brands to accelerate this community building process (many new indie brands in beauty, vitamins, fashion, and some in drinks are doing so), but does require a non-conformist approach, one that leaves behind the myths and misconceptions that so many brands and agencies still swear by.

Some data & top posts:

Footnote:

*Conversely, soda brand Olipop, has made sizeable investments in #olipoppartners — while it has grown nicely for a young brand and amassed huge engagement numbers, the posts don’t feel as impactful as Dr Pepper’s organic love letters, so its growth is slower

__

About the author: 20+ years experience in insights & marketing mix at P&G, marketing & media consultancy at McKinsey, head of Europe at L2, co-founder at eBench and Rethink x Social. Have worked with over 250 client teams across 100+ companies in a dozen categories.

About Rethink x Social: we’re a boutique marketing consultancy, backed by our proprietary tool that tracks and analyses hundreds of thousands of accounts, surfacing insights on trends, best practices, category leaders, and content excellence. We help clients on everything from investment priorities, to social strategies and content design. Our most recent R&D emphasis has been on short video content codes, identifying do’s and don’ts on tone of voice, storytelling, the roles of subtext, sounds, protagonists, and how to source content big ideas for a lean fewer/better content approach.