PepsiCo China

My experience

As an Intern in a big organization, I was given the chance of being a full-fledged member of the Design Team, I had responsibilities and specific tasks that I had to accomplish with the aim of bringing tangible results. In our in-house team I was simply a designer, rather than a being just a support member. In the organization I had the opportunity to work on multiple different problems, with a hands-on approach and the idea of making things, never to waste work done without having a proper aim.

Visualization for campaigns was often done in accordance with production constraints and time in mind, for these reason designing how a campaign is reflected on location in the point of sale is a driver for the project's direction since the initial stages of planning the direction in which a campaign or a new product launch is going.

‍

VR Experiences

One of my major responsibilities during my period working in the Design Team has been to create VR Experiences. In the context of the studio we used Unreal Engine and Keyshot VR to prototype big installations, to understand real life scale, to show concepts with numerous variations in one seamless experience and as a part of our Innovation program, to support interactions with users and to develop experiences for final users.

‍

When working with VR the most direct and fast use that we integrated in the Team workflow was to prototype big installations and aspects of differents possible lines to make more informed decisions. In the case of installations and Pop-ups it means to get a real scale rendition of what the structure will look like, allowing the team to make changes to shapes and colours, while testing dimensions and layouts for operators of said structures.

By using this tool it is possible to speed up iterations at very little cost of work and time for the team. Having VR expertise allows to make concepts in scale and show them to clients, introducing an interactive element to the presentation of a project, on which it is possible to work on and adjust as the project progresses.

‍

Pop-up Design

At the start of my experience in PepsiCo my first project was to research for a Pop-up installation for the launch of the beef noodle flavour in Taiwan. I did not participate in the later phases of the design process. The final design differed greatly from my initial concepts, however my research, with its references and data, helped in making conscious decisions for the interior design, connecting meaningful and proven experiences in a unique spin that communicated the Lay's brand. With good coordination all contributions are useful to the team.

‍

One of the last Pop-up design I have taken part to in PepsiCo was the launch activation of the Lay's Signature brand, a limited edition custom chip made with wild combinations of gourmet ingredients, happened in Shanghai in 2019. Lay's Signature is an experience, from the anticipation to the ordering process, arriving at the counter to receive Lay's Signature chips and experiencing a unique product.

Our team wanted to create a complete experience that could give something unique in every aspect of the activation event, rising up the Lay's brand and showing it in its true aspect of flavour expert. We created a stage for people to create content by showing the entire process of mixing flavors and chips together to create new combinations. The physical part of the event is creating a brindge between the digital touchpoint, with stories and details about the flavors encouraging people to try them all (they were free!), and the actual chips, delivered in a custom container by the staff.

The sense of spectacle and transparency creates a good memory for people attending even before trying the chips themselves. Creating a complete experience that gives back at all levels and is present in different moments of the day of our users is a way to thank them for supporting the brand.

During my experience I have grown immensely and came to really understand the value of execution. In the operative context of an organization in which the Design function is integrated and a part of a bigger process, involving multiple people every time, being able to do the technical job or doing a "good" design is the minimum requirement, to do more and to be as human-centered as possible is the objective of every project, to research more, to gather and analyse more insights to make better decisions for people, the environment and the business is something that can be achieved only after the execution of the job is done fast, at scale and in a "good" way.

‍

I was a part of the team that worked on the installation for Harbin Ice festival, we designed an installation that wanted to convey the meaning of Pepsi to all the visitors. The sheer scale of the final result lead me to think about the repercussion of my work on a larger scale.

Being a part of an organization that was actually bigger than the local Pepsico China helped me put all our work inside a bigger context, helping me grow and trying to see how the work that I was doing contributed in the work of a lot of people that I had not met. In a way the Design Team of PepsiCo as a whole is trying to make Design accepted as a player in the operations of the entire organization, and as a consequence of this process, to change the perspective on the designers' role more in general, the intent in developing the individual capabilities of every designer in order to become a tangible business partner, ultimately working with meaning for the final user and bringing empathy across the company.