When faced with boredom, many people’s first reaction might be to turn to their phone. Dr Pepper, however, is prescribing a dose of weirdness to treat everyday monotony.
A bizarre campaign, created by London agency Pablo, personifies Dr Pepper as a medical doctor with a soda can for a head. This doctor’s cure is to inject strangeness into the public’s breaks.
The brand is running dozens of out-of-home (OOH) displays in the U.K. with messages based on the time of day when people might be taking a break from work. For example, one ad recommends, “Take your tastebuds somewhere weird for lunch,” while another reads, “Liberally apply to the tongue, face and 2pm meetings.”
Meanwhile, Dr Pepper’s video ads will interrupt dull viewing with odd scenes such as people riding tiny bicycles or a human-bird hybrid strumming a guitar and screeching.
The campaign is a response to the habit of mindless social media browsing and the phenomenon of doomscrolling, in which people spend excessive amounts of time reading negative news and posts online. 97% of Gen Z admit to doomscrolling in their breaks, according to a 2023 report in Harvard Business Review.
“At Dr Pepper, we believe that ‘weird’ is something magical, energizing, and surprisingly good,” Henry Poynor, creative strategy director at The Coca-Cola Company, said in a statement. “It’s the perfect remedy to energize a boring break time that usually has us sitting on our phones while guzzling down the same old meal deal at our desks before getting back to the grind.”
This is the second wave of Dr Pepper’s “Try More Weird” brand platform that launched last year with a refresh of the soft drink’s packaging design after a decade-long marketing hiatus in the U.K.