Pepsi Refresh Project goes live

A campaign by PepsiCo to give $20 million to programs and causes picked by fans is up and running. PepsiCo, which chose to focus on the Pepsi Refresh Project rather than advertise its drinks on the Super Bowl, says the online portal got 1,000 submissions in one 16-hour span, or about one per minute. The ideas will be voted on by fans, and PepsiCo will ante up the cash.

"I've been doing digital for a long time, and I haven't seen a program in my life with this kind of momentum," Bonin Bough, PepsiCo's global director of digital and social media, told the AJC. "It's about funding the ideas of our consumers. We're not giving you a list of pre-defined charities or whatever. It's about releasing control of the brand."

First reported by the AJC on Twitter here.