The old soda wars used to involve the “man on the street” blind taste test ads. Today, Pepsi is seizing the social media moment and engaging the public to do good. Since women make 80% of the consumer decisions, are the majority of socially responsible consumers and lead the use of social media it seems that Pepsi is targeting the woman consumer.

Their new campaign “be sociable, have a Pepsi” speaks right to the heart of what women want – a company:

1. with a social conscious that does good;

2. that taps people’s collective creativity; and

3. that connects people to each other.

You can see the campaign at: refresheverything.com.

Stuart Elliot, in today’s New York Times, covers the Pepsi push: ”Pepsi-Cola is formally introducing on Monday an ambitious campaign named the Pepsi Refresh Project, aimed at doing well by doing good. The brand is dedicating at least $20 million through the end of the year for donations to local organizations and causes proposed by the public in realms like health, arts and culture, the environment and education.”

As part of the campaign consumer will be asked to vote for causes they like.

I predict that this is the future for corporate social responsibility. Gone are the days when it will be just enough if corporation give to causes. Now, because of social media, consumer will expect to have a say on where the dollars go.

Stoneyfield Farms has been an innovator in this field and for years has been engaging their customers in voting where part of their “Profit for the Plant” gets invested.

This is going to be a campaign to watch. I can’t help but think their female CEO, Indra Nooyi, had a lot to do with it.

Stay tuned…

The campaign, which invited the public to nominate and vote for the “small business story that most inspires them,” wrapped today with the announcement of the winner: Sacred Wind Communications, a telecommunications outfit based in Albuquerque that is working to wire Navajo lands with telephone and Internet access. The company will receive with $100,000 in grant and marketing support.

“Shine the Light” is a great example of a campaign that was not overtly marketed to women as the target audience, but nonetheless capitalized on a number of marketing principles and tactics that appeal to them:

1. You decide: The entire contest was driven by public input, from nominations to voting for the winner – the principle of putting women in CONTROL in action.

2. iVillage: This women-oriented online entity, which NBC acquired in 2006, was responsible for creating the online community platform; it also hosted the campaign web site (http://shinealight.ivillage.com) and promoted the campaign heavily.

3. All-female judging panel: Coincidence or not, all three judges were women: Talk Show Host and Entrepreneur Ellen DeGeneres, Fashion Designer and Entrepreneur Diane von Furstenberg, and MSNBC’s Small Business Expert JJ Ramberg. They winnowed the nominees to three finalists.

4. Social media: The corporate sponsors of the contest offered promotional tools like widgets and badges on the campaign web site that people could easily use them to CONNECT and spread word of mouth through their networks on Facebook and MySpace.

The campaign smartly tapped into the growing trend among women entrepreneurs, who make up the fastest-growing segment of U.S. small businesses. What’s more, businesses owned by women of color are growing three times faster than all U.S. firms, according Center for Women’s Business Research.

When Lisa and I were promoting The She Spot, one perceptual hurdles we had to overcome was the notion that, if a campaign doesn’t hang out a big banner marked “women”, it somehow doesn’t “count.”

Shine a Light proves that you don’t need to call out your target audience in boldface to hit the mark. In fact, there are many instances when doing so isn’t the strategic thing to do. The winner of the contest, for example, wasn’t a woman. That wasn’t the point. It was about getting brand exposure among the audiences that mattered most.

Ms. Brill writes that a Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund survey found that women donors were more likely to be public about their gifts than their male counterparts.

Is it because women need their horns tooted more than men? Most likely not. She notes that women probably want to share to inspire others and “imbue a philanthropic spirit.”

We write in The She Spot that women are twice as likely to pass on information than men and that women like to share things with their communities. They may see announcing their gift as a call to action to friends. If NGOs can help tastefully assist these gift announcements they may see a multiplier effect with the initial gift.

She also noted the importance for women to have their children continue their philanthropic giving. One great way to facilitate this is to provide ways for families to give and get involved. This might be an online video game aimed at school-aged children or making sure that fund-raising/friend-raising events are kid friendly. The Humane Society of the United States does this well through a special kid portal and numerous games.

Finally, she notes that despite the stark economic downturn, groups like the Global Fund for Women and the Women’s Funding Network’s Women Moving Millions Campaign have either broken records or exceed fundraising goals in 2009.  She credits this to the momentum in women’s philanthropy.