BEST OF: E210: Todd Kaplan: CMO @ Pepsi: Culture Bending Creative & Entrepreneurial Leader

First Aired 4/22/22

Todd Kaplan is the Chief Marketing Officer at Pepsi. In his role, he oversees all brand creative, communications and commercial execution across Pepsi, Diet Pepsi and Pepsi Zero Sugar, while building a long term strategy and new product innovation for the brand overall.

He has implemented a unique “culture in, brand out” approach, which has led him to develop big cultural moments, like bringing J. Lo and Shakira to the 2020 Pepsi Super Bowl Halftime show, making history as the first two Latina artists to headline the event. More recently, he put together the 2022 halftime show with landmark Hip Hop and R&B acts like Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Kendrick Lamar, Mary J Blige and 50 Cent.

This Episode’s Heavy-hitter’s:

Todd started the first student-run ad agency in the country after observing how poor marketing and targeting was in on-campus advertising.

Todd’s entry point into Pepsico was approaching Indra Nooyi at a speaking event at his Alma Mater, Yale. He impressed Indra, the former CEO of Pepsico, enough in their time speaking, and it panned out for him at a time where Pepsico didn’t even recruit from Yale.

As an entrepreneurial person, Todd’s role at Pepsico has given him the unique experience of launching a variety of different products, in both the food and beverage categories.

When designing the packaging around Bubbly, Todd took inspiration from Taco Bell’s hot sauce packets, which each have funny and quirky sayings on them.

The first place that Todd looks on a resume is the area at the bottom– where candidates list their interests, so that he can get a better feel for culture fit and who a candidate is as a person.

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