PepsiCo CMO: The Simple Marketing Play That Still Works

Mark Kirkham, PepsiCo's chief marketing officer, has a straightforward message for his peers. At the 2026 Cannes Lions festival, he told an interviewer that the winning play in modern marketing is not complexity. It is clarity.

"To be successful as a CMO today, you've got to keep it simple," Kirkham said.

He pointed to a campaign that predates most of the people running it. The "Pepsi Challenge," launched more than 50 years ago, is still in use. Kirkham described it as a sampling activation at its core. "Sampling is a powerful, simple tool to put can-in-hand and brand-in-hand, and get people to try your product in a different way," he said.

The comment lands at a moment when marketing budgets face renewed scrutiny. Consumer goods companies are squeezing costs across the board, and the CMO role has become a revolving door at many firms. Kirkham's argument is that the answer is not a more expensive campaign. It is a better idea, executed directly.

PepsiCo has been testing that thesis. The company has leaned into live events and in-person sampling, betting that a physical experience cuts through the noise of digital ads. The "Pepsi Challenge" model – a blind taste test – works because it removes brand bias and lets the product speak, Kirkham said.

For marketers watching from the sidelines, the takeaway is not about cola. It is about the structure of the pitch. Kirkham is arguing that the most effective marketing brief is one that a store manager, a distributor, and a consumer can all repeat from memory. If the idea needs a paragraph to explain, it is already too long.