I’ve read all sorts of reactions about this mail from Pepsi CEO to his Sales/Marketing team. Some laughable, some sheer ignorance. I hear some got paid to push. Well, you can’t pay me for my thoughts on strategy. I’ll do a thread on it by 10am tomorrow if I get just 50 retweets. 
So let's discuss this laughable conversation about Pepsi and Bigi. A simple clear case of competitive strategy at play. I was shocked to see several reactions alleging racism, monopoly, and all sorts of names in reaction to the email sent by the MD of Pepsi to his team.
First, it's important that we understand the ownership structure of Pepsi & CocaCola in Nigeria. Despite being international brands, they are bottled by indigenous companies, who are franchise owners of the brands - Seven-Up bottling Company(SBC) &Nigerian Bottling Company (NBC).
SBC is the franchise bottler of Pepsi along with 7up, Mirinda, Teem, etc. while their main competitor, NBC is franchise bottler of Cocacola, Fanta, Eva, etc. Both were quoted on the NSE with Nigerian shareholders, until SCB recently delisted, & employ thousands of Nigerians.
To therefore say they are foreign companies that govt should "regulate" for "indigenous" ones to thrive is at best, laughable, and ignorant of how free-market economy and competitive strategy works. The mail was a simple operational mail aimed at rousing the Pepsi team for war.
It is also important to know that this carbonated soft drinks (CSD) industry is NOT a monopoly, and in fact has about 18 various products competing for customer wallets. It's also key to know that Bigi's market entry strategy was itself a war on the incumbents - brutal price war.
Bigi was brutal - they changed the market dynamics in terms of volumes & price, and forced the dominant incumbents to either reduce prices or introduce new product variants at lower prices. Despite this, Bigi continued to kill the incumbents, who had to keed adjusting prices.
Using Porter's 5forces of competition, Bigi is making the market unbearable for incumbents. Their intensity of competition is getting fiercer, they've increased threats of substitute,& barriers to new entry & bargaining power of buyers which were hitherto low, has now become high
Correction: They've increased threat of substitutes, somewhat lowered barriers to new entrants & increased the bargaining power of buyers which were hitherto low. This is not a market scenario that requires back-patting from Pepsi. So that email was at best a bonus-deserving one!
To, therefore, expect SBC/Pepsi to fold its arms, while its smaller competitors shrink its market share, is at best foolish. To also pick out on the use of the term "war" as a basis for citicism, is ignorant of strategy lingua. Competitive strategy is war. You win or you die.
Now, it is important that brands adopt more strategic approach to social media engagements. If truly, Bigi engaged online agents to push it's agenda via those silly narratives that I saw, then their agents may need to be fired- along with the Pepsi staff that leaked the mail.
I've also said endlessly that Twitter users, esp those with a sizeable number of followers, should stick to their core area of expertise. Rushing to share narratives on everything and anything, even when your knowledge is uncertain, does nothing but dent your personal brand. End.
So.......Let the WAR begin! Ultimately, we, the customers WIN!!!
