Dive Brief:
- Former PepsiCo CEO Roger Enrico, who led the company to nearly surpass its chief competitor Coca-Cola during the 1980s soda wars, died Wednesday. He was 71.
- Enrico bolstered PepsiCo's marketing initiatives by signing a sponsorship deal with pop star Michael Jackson; creating other iconic campaigns featuring celebrities like Madonna, Michael J. Fox, Lionel Richie, and Cindy Crawford; and developing the first Pepsi Challenge blind taste tests.
- PepsiCo's advertising blast and market share gain (nearly 30%) pushed Coca-Cola in 1985 to release and quickly discontinue New Coke, known as one of the biggest marketing debacles. Enrico penned a memoir on the experience in 1986, "The Other Guy Blinked—How Pepsi Won the Cola Wars," though PepsiCo never did overtake the beverage leader.
Dive Insight:
Enrico's story is one of an executive who rose through the ranks in consumer goods, joining PepsiCo's Frito-Lay in 1971 as an associate marketing director for the Funyuns brand. Over the next 25 years, he was brand manager for Cheetos and Fritos, led PepsiCo's operations in Japan and South America, and served as CEO of Pepsi-Cola USA (where he made his marketing moves), PepsiCo Beverages, Frito-Lay, and PepsiCo's restaurant division.
Enrico was finally given the top PepsiCo CEO and chairman titles in 1996, which he held until retiring in 2001. In his tenure as CEO, Enrico oversaw the spinoff of PepsiCo's restaurant business (1997 — now Yum! Brands Inc.) and acquisitions of the Tropicana brand (1998) and Quaker Oats Co., including the Gatorade brand (2000).
While Yum! Brands has since outpaced PepsiCo's growth and seen its stock soar, Tropicana and Gatorade are still integral to PepsiCo's portfolio and innovation initiatives today. Gatorade ranked No. 6 on the list of top 10 largest U.S. beverage brands last year and was PepsiCo's third-largest brand behind Pepsi and Mountain Dew, according to Beverage Marketing Corporation.
Enrico also led by example by actively seeking out opinions from employees and receiving a base salary of $1 during his last four years with the company, with the rest donated to scholarships for employees' children. At a time when companies pay out high executive compensation and shareholders demand a "say on pay," Enrico's example demonstrates creative ways executives can use compensation to keep employee (and shareholder) morale high.