ABOUT

The cola category has been around for a century, and the central idea of cola hasn't changed… until now. Nitro Pepsi™ is the world's first nitrogen-infused cola. Because of its nitrogen infusion, it’s lighter, smoother, and silkier than you can imagine. Nitro Pepsi offers a whole new beverage experience, with a soft and creamy texture and a taste that is still unapologetically Pepsi®.

Smaller bubbles infused with nitrogen create the unbelievably smooth, creamy texture of Nitro Pepsi, made possible by a unique widget placed at the bottom of every can. This is the first time this type of widget technology, often seen in beer and coffee products, is being applied to the cola category and creates its unique frothy, foamy mouthfeel.

Pepsi prides itself on trying unfamiliar and intriguing things in the name of innovation, and Nitro Pepsi disrupts the category in a whole new way. Nitro Pepsi is a wholly unique offering that puts us ahead of competitors and strengthens the relationship with all cola lovers, from the Pepsi brand's dedicated core to those who might be willing to embrace something new. Nitro Pepsi stays within reach, bringing people along the journey with its multi-layered emotional and experiential storytelling.

The Design Team led creative from concept to execution—all of it promising to lift consumers up with a unique experience each and every time they choose Nitro Pepsi. The team created a new logo, color palette, and cola expression—all of which had to translate as completely new, while also retaining an association with core Pepsi assets. We conceptualized and executed a solution for educational storytelling that captured both hearts and minds through experiential blueprint-style illustrations. The team also created a new type treatment that communicated the cascade of Nitro Pepsi bubbles.

To bring Nitro Pepsi to life, the Design Team crafted a visual story that captivates those engaged with unapologetic excitement. An emotive color palette, immersive bubble effects, and unexpected headline treatments work together as disruptive elements to tell a compelling story that drives consumer engagement and relationship. Our design vision is uplifting and immediate, instantly sparking connection and conversation. It’s both sensorial and expressive, heightening the moment. The aim was to evoke a certain curiosity that piques and then holds consumer interest, leaving them wanting more.

The Nitro Pepsi brand’s experiential storytelling is composed of many elements. Nitro Pepsi is the very first innovation platform to use the Pepsi Globe in an entirely new way—one that conveys its own iconicity and unique cola expression. We incorporated both dynamic and static textures, both inside the globe and other key areas to show the motion of the product’s cascading bubble effect. It appears as if the bubbles themselves have drawn together to form the Pepsi globe. When choosing the colors for Nitro Pepsi, we opted for those that imbue a taste experience. The team decided on pops of warm copper and soft vanilla to communicate a soft creamy cola expression, set against a darker, richer blue.

The type treatment we developed for Nitro Pepsi is confident, but not as bold as trademark Pepsi. It is unapologetic, but with a certain lightness. The brand’s type is modern and elevated, but still approachable. Throughout the various assets we created for the digital toolkit, we used illuminated effects to gently light the way, acting as a spotlight to draw the viewer’s eye to the product. It creates a designated visual space to place product or equipment, and it functions as a kind of platform. As a part of the digital toolkit, we created educational illustrations, which were designed to demonstrate how Nitro Pepsi works. Reflecting the overall artisanal-meets-architectural feel, we opted to display the illustrations in a way that mimicked an architect’s blueprints.

The Design Team also concepted and directed photoshoots and video shoots, launched a new brand voice, managed and executed creative production, and worked with many cross-functional partners including Marketing, R&D, and PR—displaying collaborative excellence throughout the process. To further build the Nitro Pepsi story, the Design team used signature lifestyle photography and videography to communicate this all-new cola expression while maintaining ties to Pepsi. Taking a digital-first approach, the digital toolkit is both truly digital and motion-first, complete with custom-created video sequences designed to captivate the viewer. All of these elements come together to tell the compelling story of Nitro Pepsi, as an evolution of the Pepsi consumers know and love so well but also in a category all its own.