Better Oats Takes Over Pepsi’s Old Slogan

Better Oats, a brand of 12 instant oatmeal varieties introduced in 2010, has adopted the tagline made famous by Pepsi-Cola during the 1980s: “Choice of a New Generation.” The slogan will feature in Better Oats’ first-ever online advertising campaign. Ironically, PepsiCo is the parent company of Better Oats’ main competitor, Quaker Oats.

“As a company that does things differently than most other CPG brands, we like to invest our money in the things that are most important, and that’s providing great-tasting breakfast cereals at a great price,” noted Linda Fisher, corporate communications manager for Minneapolis-based MOM Brands, formerly known as Malt-O-Meal. “We’re launching this campaign without a fancy ad agency, celebrity spokesperson or big advertising budget. We’re crowd-sourcing video content and are placing it online and on YouTube. We’re getting word-of-mouth exposure through social media. Our Better Oats brand is bringing new, younger and more affluent consumers to the instant oatmeal category, and that trend, coupled with our nontraditional campaign, is why ‘Choice of a New Generation’ tagline is such a good fit.”

PepsiCo let its trademark on the tagline expire in 2006, and MOM Brands applied for registration of the mark three years later.

As part of the campaign, an amateur filmmaker, Josh Anderson, created an online video, “A 23 Flavor Celebration,” via video crowd-sourcing company Poptent. Incorporating the newly repurposed tagline, the video, which features a pajama-clad Anderson celebrating Better Oats in song and dance, will premiere simultaneously on the Better Oats Facebook page, YouTube and a dedicated microsite.

Better Oats will also run paid media to kick-start the campaign on such popular websites as Hulu, VH1, MTV, Comedy Central, Xfinity and The Onion.