How PepsiCo's In-House Agency Is Doing Things Differently

As executive creative director for Europe at PepsiCo in-house agency Sips & Bites, you’d probably expect quantity and efficiency to be part of Matt Watson’s pitch. But the projects coming out of the drinks and snacks specialist creative shop aren’t what you’d expect. “The type of work we make is different to most in-house agencies,” he says. “We don't do any adaptation, we don't do any versioning, transcreation, artworking, POS; we do none of that stuff. We go after fewer, bigger projects.”

The objective is just great work, Matt insists, even if the natural outcome of an in-house model is economising for the client. “Cost saving is not an input for why we in-house as a business. It's about bringing in creativity to the heart of the business.”

Saying it is one thing. But he can back it up. Last month in Cannes, Sips & Bites won two Silver and one Bronze Lion for Doritos ‘Silent’ – a project which cheekily made the corn triangles into ‘the world’s first AI-augmented snack’. In a matter of clicks it allowed PC gamers to download bespoke software that listened for Doritos crunches from other gamers and cancelled them out in real time. And a few weeks ago at D&AD the project also won a Yellow Pencil, two Graphite, One wood and three shortlists too. These aren’t accolades that the industry is used to seeing in-house agencies win. But we might have to start getting used to it.

Four years since the agency formed, bringing Matt in to lead the team creatively, Sips & Bites is just about ready to show the world how it differs from other in-house creative agencies. “We've never PRed ourselves because we've always been building the plane while flying it,” he says. “We've always been trying to figure out where we sit within the business and think about how we service the brands and help the brands grow in the best way.”

Sips & Bites’ team of around 35 across Europe now includes strategy, production, motion graphics, designers, eight creative teams, a social team and a videographer, with a hub in London and a hub in Warsaw. “I think we're doing things differently,” Matt says.

“I spent 16 years in advertising agencies. I worked night and day, pitching on weekends. I gave my life up making ideas. I worked for a lot of big-name ECDs and CCOs. The culture of advertising is fun, but I think that the work of it was kind of backbreaking, mentally and physically.” 

The allure of PepsiCo was “some of the most fun FMCG brands out there” for Matt – Pepsi, 7Up, Rockstar, Monster Munch, Quavers, Walker's, Doritos. “Super fun, they don't take themselves too seriously. We're snacks and drinks. So we want to build a team of people who want to have fun and make work.” 

Matt’s pitch to people like him who want to leave an ad agency career to work in house is straightforward: “Do you want to get your life balance back? Do you want to have fun and find the love of work again? Also, do you love our brands? If so, then come and make some work and have fun doing it.”

The agency’s first year saw one project that defined the kind of work the Sips & Bites would specialise in. It was for Wotsits Giants, and it involved setting a Guinness World Record for the world’s longest puffed corn snack. “That set us on our way,” says Matt. The briefs the in-house agency had started out getting were often digital one-offs when he’d first arrived. He set his sights on something bigger. “And that's what we did. Ridiculous, but people then knew who we were, they knew the work we were doing, they knew we had fun doing it, that there were no egos.”

“The thing is, the vision of what we do and why we do it is to create strong, growing brands for PepsiCo, to make people love our brands, to make people engage in them, make our brands culturally relevant. We don’t pitch, and our agency ecosystem allows for in-house and external teams to own projects and work together on brands. It's whatever is best for the brand – an external lens looking in is needed sometimes.”

That’s something that Doritos has seen proof of in the UK. Last year Sips & Bites brought to life an idea for the triangular snack brand called the 'For the Bold in Everyone', focusing on challenging stereotypes and bias, celebrating septuagenarian hip-hop duo Pete & Bas, English footballer Chloe Kelly and 'dancing granny' Colette Zacca, as well as Dan Mancina – a visually impaired skateboarder who has achieved a Guinness World Record for a 50-50 grind. It was a follow-up to the tongue-in-cheek tech launch of Doritos ‘Silent’, but a wildly different kind of campaign. 

Work like this is the business engine for the agency. Good creative projects by Sips & Bites are shared well across PepsiCo’s internal network. “Globally, creative work is shared within the organisation, which is incredible,” says Matt. “And when people see the work we do, emails come flooding in.”

There are two things that Matt wants to be synonymous with Sips & Bites: “Briefs that want to make the brand famous or crash culture with our brands.” Doritos 'Silent' was a gaming-culture brief, he notes – a project that solved a consumer’s problem (noisy Doritos eating while gaming) but made the brand famous in the gaming community. “We crashed gaming culture by solving a problem they all face. And Doritos being one of the guilty parties.”

  

Matt has a lot of admiration for in-house agencies for the UK broadcasters, BBC Creative and 4creative, but those brands are already in the cultural space – their product is culture. “Whereas we're an FMCG brand so we need to work really hard to have any right to be part of culture,” he says. “I admire them a lot from afar, and the work they put out.”

Thankfully Sips & Bites has access to some of the most fun-loving brands in the world in PepsiCo’s stable, and Matt has direct access to the marketers at those brands. “As an in-house agency, the one thing we battle with the most is kind of like our superpower,” he says. “That we are really close to the brand team so we can move quickly.” Even if that does mean they walk over to Matt’s desk bothering him with ideas and WhatsApping him every day. “I try and protect the creatives from it a little bit, because you need to keep that outside perspective as much as you can. And that's why we're also in our own space in London, not in the head office in Reading.”

When Matt first got approached to join PepsiCo he actually said no. “I was being naive. I had a perception of in-housing and I didn't want to do that. I was 34, ECD of an independent agency. And I was just like, 'I've got loads of years in me. I'm not gonna come in-house.' Then the more people I've met, the more I’ve realised the ambition at great in-house agencies.

“Four years later, I'm still loving every single minute of it. I love the team. I’m really proud of the crew, proud of what we’re achieving and proud of our culture. It's really special. And we're going to keep pushing the needle.”