Pepsi Culture Can - China City Edition | 2022

Designer: PepsiCo Design & Innovation, PepsiCo, New York, New York, USA
Manufacturer: PepsiCo, New York, New York, USA

Following the success of last year’s Culture Can series in China, a campaign in which we utilized new media platforms to empower traditional culture in innovative ways, the Pepsi team decided to continue building its cultural relevance with a new series of cans for 2022. The objective for this series was to win in strategic areas of the Chinese market through the Pepsi brand embracing and reflecting Chinese heritage and therefore increasing desirability with local consumers.

The Design Team created Pepsi Culture Cans - China City Edition with three different designs tailored to three Chinese cities: Xi’an, Jilin, and Luoyang. Leaning into the use of visual language that carries strong regional relevance allows Pepsi to build local consumer recognition. On each can, iconic landmarks and unique local patterns are illustrated with distinctive colors and metallic accents to capture the attention of consumers and invite them to engage with the product. Each design features bold typography, proudly representing the name of each city.

The team set the design representing Xi’an on a bold blue Pepsi substrate and illustrated the city’s 600+ year old iconic bell tower in central Xi’an, with orange and red accents. In the background, they included beautifully painted Chinese fans, a unique genre of Chinese painting. They also added peonies, known as “the king of flowers”, which brings to mind the abundance and lush beauty of eras gone by.

Next in the series is a design with symbols from Jilin City, one of the oldest cities in Northeast China. Also, set atop a bold blue substrate, the design is accented in green and silver. For this design, they included an illustration of Heaven Lake, a crater lake that lies atop the volcanic Paektu Mountain. In the background, they also included fans used in Northeast Errenzhuan, a popular form of local folk opera and duet that involves storytelling, singing, and dancing.

Finally, to complete the series, the design team included icons from the city of Luoyang, the capital of nine ruling dynasties and a Buddhist center. The city was noted for its fine buildings, pleasure parks, and literary culture, especially Confucian scholarship. They depicted the Luoyang Ruins, accenting the black background with pops of gold. They also included Chinese sky lanterns with floral details, which are used as a part of long-established festivities.