Last year Pepsi-Cola adjusted its name to local pronunciation of Argentina and now it moves with the same project to Spain. The thing is that many Spanish-speaking people have difficulties with pronouncing the sound “p” in the word “Pepsi” and say “Pe(c)si” instead.
In a new commercial in a commercial featuring Spanish soccer star Fernando Torres, who is “flying in a spaceship” this becomes the key theme. He and the British director argue about saying the word and at last the sportsman comes up to the Pepsi sign and rips the letter «P» from it, adding that in his neighborhood, it’s called «Pesi.»
As Adage.com reports, Spanish agency La Despensa created the website lodigascomolodigas.com (Spanish for «You say it like you say it»), which introduces the commercial and the faux “backstage” video. It also have a spot telling about Comando Pesi, a team going to different regions and finding out how local people say the word “Pepsi” and what other unusual idioms and expressions they use. This vocabulary will form Real Pesipedia Española.
As for now the brand is not going to launch any similar campaigns in other Spanish-speaking countries like Mexico and Venezuela, where people do not pronounce the word Pepsi as it is in English.