PepsiCo and Labatt are asking consumers “you up?” in a new campaign aimed to be disruptive and to highlight its latest product in key markets across Canada.

The tagline is the centerpiece of the creative behind the SVNS Hard 7Up drink, which is a new entry to the ready-to-drink (RTD) alcohol market this spring. The product, which combines alcohol with 7Up, comes from a collaboration between PepsiCo Beverages Canada and Labatt Breweries of Canada.

The drink’s 360-degree marketing campaign launched on Tuesday in key markets like the Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal, leveraging the “you up?” tagline through activations across social, OOH, paid and earned influencers. 

The campaign is timed to spark conversation at or after 7:00 p.m. in the local time zones of each city. This includes a green-dot takeover on Instagram, where the brand’s social page as well as the pages of influencers across the country will turn green while tagging SVNS Hard 7Up’s account in their bio for 72 hours. The Instagram takeover also includes influencers posting stories to create intrigue and tagging seven friends to spread the news. The campaign also covers short-form video content for SVNS Hard 7Up-owned channels, and OOH components like neon building projections, LED truck advertisements and sampling activations.

“The intent is to create an engaging and ownable ‘call out’ to consumers who enjoy evening, social occasions, with a subtle nod to the flavour we’re leveraging to create this alcoholic product,” Labatt’s senior director of its Beyond Beer brands Mike D’Agostini tells strategy.

“Bringing a new brand to the market requires standing out and finding unique ways to drive intrigue with consumers.”

D’Agostini says that consumer demand is driving the growth of the RTD alcohol category in Canada, adding that the company’s research shows there’s a desire for brands that don’t already exist on the beer market, which led to the new collaboration with PepsiCo. He adds that the campaign’s goal is to pique the interest of people between the legal drinking age limit and 34-year-old consumers, honing in on the 7 p.m. activation timing to connect to the brand name.

“Recently, options that have shaken up the RTD alcohol category are existing products that have collaborated with alcohol brands, mainly in the hard lemonade or hard iced tea space,” D’Agostini says. “We wanted to switch it up and bring an innovation to the alcohol seltzer category.”

Some Canadian retailers like BC Liquor and Couche-Tard will also host exclusive programs and activations, following the same creative lead as the OOH components of the campaign, scheduled for the coming months of this year.

The campaign is also set for activations at Toronto Blue Jays games at Rogers Centre this summer, and at music festivals like Veld, Chasing Summer, Electric Island and FVDED in the Park.

Anomaly led creative on the campaign, with Starcom handling the media buy, Veritas overseeing PR and communications, Motive overseeing the experiential campaign work, Mosaic taking on shopper and trade and Shikatani Lacroix Design worked on packaging development.