The “One More Time” campaign began with three murals that were inspired by quotes from the artist’s family and some of his notable lyrics. Each mural focused on a unique element of his identity from his Jamaican heritage, his love of fashion and laid-back approach.

Kirkham explained the relevancy of the artist, who filmed a song about his love for Pepsi not long before his death, working with influencers to drive awareness and excitement, resulting in over a billion impressions already, with more content to be released in the coming weeks.

“The way you invest in partnerships is very different today, and we wanted to celebrate the 50th anniversary in a way that was both relevant to our brand but also one that could almost pay homage to ‘Biggie,’” he said. “We worked with his estate to actually tell the narrative.”

He added that this was an example of how Pepsi has developed its marketing to celebrate cultural icons and parts of the company.

“The day of ‘I’ll stick you in an ad’ or ‘I’ll stick you on our packaging’—that just doesn’t work anymore. You have to find their unique voice,” Kirkham’s advice when partnering with celebrities authentically when planning a major modern campaign today.

He also revealed that metric tracking is handled internally by PepsiCo to look at first and third-party data while measuring and targeting stores through geo-targeting and return on sales.

“This concept of personalization at scale and really getting your message and your medium in the right place at the right time and on the right channel is what’s allowing most brands to be a lot smarter to target messages,” he added.