Pepsi quits the Super Bowl… but for a good cause

For the first time in 23 years the Super Bowl will not have an ad promoting Pepsi. *collective gasp*

Rather than shell out $33 million for just a few seconds of advertising, as they did in 2009, Pepsi will instead pump $20 million into grants for health, environment, culture, and education-related organizations for improving communities. This initiative is dubbed the Refresh Project, and the grantees are decided by ordinary blokes like me and you by voting for the ideas that we feel are deserving. Readers can also submit their own organizations and ideas for consideration. And by ideas, they mean ways to uplift communities, be it by education, sprucing up the environment and such, not ways to improve your bottom-line. Think charity folks!

Each month, up to 10 awardees will receive grants of $5,000, ten more receive grants of $25,000 another ten get $50,000 and two get $250,000 grants.

Starting February 1, we get to steer the direction of Pepsi’s online cause marketing campaign.