On a late-night subway after overtime, a lyric suddenly comes through your earphones: "As long as the soul is still burning, live as your own self," and your eyes well up. In a moment of being questioned or denied, you hear, "Even if I fight to the last second, I will shine and radiate heat," and suddenly feel you can hold on a bit longer. Or just scrolling through your phone, you see a blue radish being turned by netizens into "Evil Bobo," "Blue Bikini," "This Radish Has Turned Dark," can't help but laugh, then click on the MV and loop it all day. This isn't niche indie music, but a brand theme song "Alive" recently created by Pepsi-Cola together with Ashin of Mayday and Jackson Wang, with an MV directed by Golden Melody Award Best MV director Chen I-Jen. The song avoids slogan-like preaching and sentimental piling, full of sincerity. More surprisingly, the song not only flooded social networks but also quietly ignited offline shelves. Fans loop "Alive again a passion passion game" while running to convenience stores to buy Pepsi-Cola—"Soda with Alive" has become the most immersive ritual of this summer. For the channel side, this content heat is worth more attention. It doesn't stop at online discussion but provides offline terminals with a fresher consumption reason: young people walk to shelves, freezers, and terminal channels not just because they "want a drink," but also because they like a song, identify with an attitude, want a piece of merchandise, or want to participate in a music event. In today's world where consumers are increasingly hard to move, a brand theme song can make young people from all circles spontaneously spread it—what exactly did Pepsi do right? Can this momentum penetrate the screen and bring incremental logic to offline channels? Each generation has its own Pepsi theme song Not just "Alive," when mentioning Pepsi's brand theme songs, people from different eras might recall a song in their minds—not necessarily the same one, but that song is tied to their own youthful memories. This shows that the connection between Pepsi-Cola and music is far more than ordinary cooperation. In the 1960s, Pepsi shouted "The Choice of a New Generation," and since then, Pepsi has been firm that music is the most direct way to reach young people. In the global market, Pepsi has collaborated with international superstars like Michael Jackson, Madonna, and Britney Spears. Over time, many in the industry believe that releasing an album, winning a major award, and filming a Pepsi ad mark a singer's true entry into music superstardom. After entering the Chinese-language market, Pepsi made this musical path fuller and more detailed. In 1988, Leslie Cheung became Pepsi's first Asian spokesperson and released the collaboration single "Tie Shen" (Close to You). The same year, he held 23 consecutive Pepsi superstar concerts at the Hong Kong Coliseum, directly breaking the record for the number of shows by a male Hong Kong singer. That year, Pepsi began to take root in the Chinese music scene and also pioneered brand-sponsored large-scale concerts. From the 1990s to the millennium, Pepsi and the Chinese music scene grew together into a big tree, entering a golden period of rapid development. Aaron Kwok's "Endless Longing" was composed transnationally by Janet Jackson, one of the four divas of American music at the time, and won the Global Chinese Golden Melody Award for Global Chinese至尊; Faye Wong's "Wonderful" became a benchmark for urban pop in a generation; Jay Chou's "Dragon Fist" became a hit across the country under Pepsi's all-around promotion, bringing Chinese-style hip-hop to the public. In 2004, Jay Chou, Jolin Tsai, Aaron Kwok, Sammi Cheng, and F4—nine top superstars—sang "Blue Flying" together, which is still called one of the top lineups in Chinese music history, making a touch of Pepsi blue an unavoidable collective memory in a generation's youth. In 2013, Wu Mochou's "Just Now" swept the internet, becoming the hottest BGM in early short videos; in 2019, G.E.M. and Jackson Wang's "Love Together" ignited the starting point of passion and desire for countless young people. Pepsi doesn't just listen to music with young people; it writes songs for them. With decades of deep musical cultivation, Pepsi continues to grow in the tide of the times, constantly exploring the forms of "desire" in different musical expressions. This time, "Alive" performed by Jackson Wang and Ashin is a perfect answer Pepsi has delivered on this path. When the world is noisy Pepsi uses a song as an "emotional antidote" for young people Today's young people face too many voices. External expectations, social rules, and identity labels often push a person onto a predetermined track. In such a situation, what they most easily lose is not their goals, but their sense of self-affirmation—the further they go, the harder it is to distinguish: Is this the life I truly want, or the answer someone else set for me? Pepsi didn't respond with grand success narratives or one-sided encouragement, but chose the purest form of music, which is lighter than advertising and easier to resonate with than slogans. "Alive" doesn't simply express "being alive," but a sharper self-restart—preserving passion and direction amid external noise, daring to explore one's own path within frameworks and rules. The song was written by Ashin, who also co-produced and performed it with Jackson Wang. Both are the most authentic examples of "desire makes it possible." Although they took completely different paths—Ashin has spent over 20 years in original music, from campus to 55 concerts at Beijing's Bird's Nest; Jackson Wang transitioned from a fencer to the international stage, performing at Coachella's main stage for three consecutive years, and founded TEAM WANG records & TEAM WANG design. But what they say in this song is the same thing: stay true to your heart, give it your all, and live as the person you want to be. Pepsi gave this collaboration a high degree of creative freedom, which also made "Alive" break away from the stiffness of an ad song from the start, carrying the weight and sincerity of an independent work. "The future is not always long, but the world is always impermanent / As long as the soul is still burning, live as your own self." This song, spontaneously defined by listeners as "a battle anthem for those who hold on," uses a lyric that hits emotions directly, bypassing all defenses and landing on the softest part of the heart. When resonance occurs, it drives not just topics. More crucially, how to channel this musical momentum into offline scenes, back to shelves, freezers, and terminal sales. From online heat to terminal sales How does Pepsi light up shelves with music? A truly valuable marketing event depends on whether it can continuously create incremental growth for the channel. Beverage consumption seems like a random impulse in front of the shelf, but which bottle a consumer ultimately picks up is the result of brand mindshare, scenario needs, and immediate triggers. Pepsi's years of accumulated youthful mindshare are the cornerstone for consumers to choose it; in this round of "Alive" music marketing, Pepsi built a "point-line-plane" three-in-one conversion chain on this foundation, providing young people with a fresher, more specific reason to buy. Point: Content detonation, letting heat grow organically in the social system This detonation began building momentum before the official release. Pepsi used emoji puzzles, sound clips, and suspenseful trailers to mobilize public expectations, quickly igniting the anticipation of Ashin and Jackson Wang's fan circles. Subsequently, the glimpse of the "blue stubborn radish" in the MV trailer precisely stimulated fans' enthusiasm for secondary creation. After "Alive" officially launched, the visual symbols and artist stories pushed social emotions to a peak, and the spokesperson-limited merchandise launched simultaneously with the official announcement was the most direct grafting and conversion of this fan emotion. On social platforms, fans spontaneously shared summer immersive experiences related to "Alive." Pepsi successfully reshaped young people's liking, collecting, and participation into a more powerful purchase reason than traditional promotions. Terminal sales no longer rely on conventional price pulls but achieve emotional value-driven sales through content added value. Line: Touchpoint extension, letting heat flow to offline self-owned scenes Pepsi deeply embedded the musical momentum of "Alive," along with theme song materials, spokesperson posters, street flags, and check-in points, into music festivals, urban spaces, and music competitions where young people gather. These scenes are themselves interest hubs for young people. When they are in the moment with the strongest musical atmosphere, the strongest willingness to share, and the easiest emotions to be mobilized, Pepsi blue naturally appears before their eyes—a bottle of refreshing cola becomes part of the live experience, and consumption is no longer stiff but a natural extension of emotion. Plane: Product acceptance, converting musical desire into all-channel sales How to keep the heat flowing to shelves? Pepsi's answer is to embed musical desire directly into the product itself. Pepsi simultaneously launched the product's music packaging and a "scan to win music concert tickets" campaign, directly converting young people's extreme desire for live music into a core lever driving all-channel sales. Consumers can scan the QR code on the bottle to enter a draw for concert tickets, upgrading the purchase motive from "want to drink" to "want to participate." A bottle of Pepsi-Cola creates more than one reason to buy. This link covers not just a single heat wave, but Pepsi's entire music marketing cycle this year, radiating to a broader sales base. And this logic, Pepsi has run successfully before. In the early 2000s' "Nine-Star Era," Pepsi launched star-customized cans featuring nine Chinese superstars like Aaron Kwok, Jay Chou, and Jolin Tsai, so that buying a can of Pepsi meant participating in a star-studded music event. In that era, young people vied to imitate the blue-style outfits of Pepsi superstars and collected various versions of star-customized cans as a set. The blue storm on the shelves became a musical memory and trend symbol for a generation. The value of such memories doesn't fade with time but continues in another way. Those young people who held customized cans to chase stars back then are now the mainstream consumers with purchasing power, and Pepsi blue in their hearts is no longer just a brand logo, but a connection with music, youth, and trends. Pepsi's deepest empowerment to the channel has never been one-time hotspot traffic, but through long-term music culture accumulation, making every brand event continuously add value to the shelves. From the Nine-Star Era to "Alive," Pepsi has always been doing the same thing: making music truly land back on shelves and in young people's consumption scenes. And this summer, this blue sound wave is just beginning—more surprises are already on the way! Final Thoughts What channels truly lack is not just hotspots, but business opportunities with emotional support, a complete landing logic, and the ability to continuously inject incremental momentum into terminals. What Pepsi provides with "Alive" is exactly this set of answers—from musical resonance to content breakout, to consumption conversion, each step creates more emotionally driven purchase reasons for the channel. That touch of Pepsi blue on the shelf is not just the color of a beverage can—it's a witness to decades of resonance of desire between the brand and young people.