Pepsi x Music Brings Arab Joy and Discovery to Saudi Arabia
Pepsi x Music is a 2021 Saudi Arabian beverage advertising campaign produced as a 90-second film by Dubai-based agency Face to Face, positioning Pepsi as a catalyst for musical discovery and joyful connection across the Kingdom by blending traditional Arab sounds with contemporary beats.
The campaign launched in February 2021, timed to reach Saudi Arabia's young, culturally engaged consumer base at a moment when collective social experience had been curtailed by the global pandemic. Its central proposition — rendered in the Arabic hashtag Hay Halsot, loosely translated as "let the sound live" — invited audiences to break out of their personal bubbles and rediscover joy through music. The film anchored this proposition in an original song titled "Hay Hal Sot," performed by Emirati singer Hussain Al Jassmi with lyrics written by Saudi poet Prince Badr Bin Abdul Mohsin, according to campaign documentation reported by Campaign Middle East. The dual authorship — an Emirati voice carrying words by a Saudi literary figure — gave the creative a pan-Gulf resonance that extended its emotional reach beyond a single national audience.
In Saudi Arabia, the campaign operated against a backdrop of genuine cultural momentum. The Kingdom's Vision 2030 reform agenda has actively promoted entertainment and the arts, opening new spaces for youth expression that brands like Pepsi have moved quickly to occupy. Face to Face, which secured the brief following a competitive agency pitch in late 2020 according to campaign records, constructed the film around Saudi landscapes, traditions, and people, grounding a universal theme — the power of music — in unmistakably local imagery. The Pepsi x Music campaign received a Clapboard Score of 59 out of 100, reflecting solid cultural alignment and production ambition within a non-alcoholic drinks category where emotional storytelling is increasingly the primary differentiator.
Pepsi identified music as its most credible bridge to Saudi Arabia's predominantly young population in 2021. The strategic logic was direct: the Kingdom's demographic profile skews heavily toward youth, and music — particularly the fusion of Arabic heritage sounds with modern production — had become a defining cultural currency for that generation, a dynamic well documented by the Saudi Ministry of Culture across its public programming initiatives, according to Moc Gov Sa.
The competitive context sharpened the rationale. Coca-Cola, PepsiCo's primary global rival in the carbonated soft drinks category, has long pursued music-led brand platforms of its own across Middle Eastern markets, according to reporting by Campaign Middle East. By centering the Pepsi x Music campaign on an original composition rather than a licensed track, Face to Face moved Pepsi toward genuine cultural authorship rather than cultural adjacency — a distinction that matters to audiences fluent in the difference between a brand that sponsors music and a brand that creates it. Keurig Dr Pepper represents a third major force in the broader global soft drinks landscape, according to Grand View Research, though its direct competitive presence in the Saudi market is limited compared to the Coca-Cola and PepsiCo duopoly.
The global soft drinks market was valued at approximately 416 billion dollars in 2021, according to Grand View Research, with carbonated beverages representing the dominant revenue segment. Within Saudi Arabia specifically, consumer appetite for regionally resonant brand communications had been growing alongside Vision 2030's cultural liberalisation, making 2021 an unusually fertile moment for a music-first beverage campaign. Mustafa Shamseldin, PepsiCo's Chief Marketing Officer for Africa, Middle East and South Asia, positioned the campaign explicitly around Saudi heritage and the joy of shared musical experience, as reported by Campaign Middle East — signalling that this was not a regional adaptation of a global template but a strategy built from the market outward.
The creative execution of Pepsi x Music rests on a single original song. Face to Face built the entire 90-second film around "Hay Hal Sot," a track that draws its emotional power from the pairing of Hussain Al Jassmi's widely recognised voice with lyrics authored by Prince Badr Bin Abdul Mohsin, one of the most celebrated poets in modern Saudi Arabian literary culture, as documented by campaign coverage published on March 4, 2021 by Campaign Middle East. The decision to commission an original work rather than license existing music gave the campaign a creative ownership that paid-for placements cannot replicate.
Christopher Bell, Chief Executive and Managing Partner of Face to Face, was credited by Campaign Middle East with framing the campaign's creative ambition as a direct reflection of Pepsi's commitment to Arab talent — a statement that positions the production not merely as advertising but as cultural investment. The film was shot on location in Saudi Arabia under COVID-19 production-safety protocols, according to campaign records, requiring the crew to balance logistical complexity with the visual warmth the concept demanded. The resulting imagery draws on Saudi landscapes and everyday human moments, translating the campaign's invitation to "let the world be your stage" into something that feels earned rather than imposed.
The film's structure follows the emotional arc of the song itself: beginning in the intimate and familiar, expanding outward toward collective joy, and resolving on a note of forward-looking optimism encapsulated in the hashtag campaign #ForTheLoveOfIt and the Arabic equivalents #حي_هالصوت and #حبها_عيشها. This structural alignment between music, image, and digital call-to-action reflects a disciplined creative integration uncommon in regional beverage advertising, where production ambition and platform strategy frequently operate independently of one another.
The Pepsi x Music film accumulated more than two million views alongside measurable audience engagement, according to campaign data recorded at the time of submission. Those figures, while not independently verified by a third-party measurement body, indicate meaningful organic reach for a regionally produced non-alcoholic drinks advertising campaign operating within the Saudi Arabian market in early 2021 — a period when digital video consumption was elevated across the Gulf by continued pandemic-related restrictions on physical gatherings.
No third-party verified performance data — such as brand-lift studies, sales uplift figures, or independent audience measurement reports — for the Pepsi x Music campaign is publicly available. The structural case for effectiveness, however, is coherent. A campaign that commissions original music from a culturally credible artist, grounds its visuals in authentic local imagery, and deploys a bilingual hashtag architecture across social platforms is engineered for earned amplification rather than paid reach alone. The appointment of Face to Face following a competitive pitch, as reported by campaign records, and the subsequent positive editorial coverage published by Campaign Middle East on March 4, 2021, suggest the campaign was regarded within the industry as a benchmark execution for the category in the region.
The Clapboard Score of 59 out of 100 reflects a campaign that demonstrates genuine cultural intelligence and production craft while leaving room for measurable performance ambition. In the context of the non-alcoholic drinks category in Saudi Arabia, where emotional storytelling has become the primary competitive battleground, that score positions Pepsi x Music as a creditable but not exceptional performer — stronger on cultural alignment than on documented commercial impact.
Pepsi x Music is a 90-second film campaign launched in Saudi Arabia in February 2021 by Face to Face agency. It centres on an original song, "Hay Hal Sot," performed by Hussain Al Jassmi with lyrics by Saudi poet Prince Badr Bin Abdul Mohsin, positioning Pepsi as a cultural enabler of musical joy and discovery.
Face to Face, a Dubai-based advertising agency, created the Pepsi x Music campaign. The agency secured the brief following a competitive pitch in late 2020, according to campaign records, and was led by Chief Executive and Managing Partner Christopher Bell, who was cited by Campaign Middle East in coverage published March 4, 2021.
Hussain Al Jassmi performed the original song "Hay Hal Sot" featured in the Pepsi x Music film. The lyrics were written by Saudi poet Prince Badr Bin Abdul Mohsin. The pairing of an Emirati artist with a Saudi literary voice gave the campaign a pan-Gulf cultural resonance, as reported by Campaign Middle East.
Pepsi x Music received a Clapboard Score of 59 out of 100. The score reflects the campaign's genuine cultural alignment and production craft within the non-alcoholic drinks category in Saudi Arabia, while indicating scope for stronger measurable commercial performance documentation, according to Clapboard's editorial assessment.
The Pepsi x Music film recorded more than two million views according to campaign data submitted at the time. No independently verified third-party performance metrics, such as brand-lift studies or sales uplift data, are publicly available for the campaign, though Campaign Middle East published positive editorial coverage on March 4, 2021.
Pepsi chose music to connect with Saudi Arabia's predominantly young consumer base during a period shaped by Vision 2030's cultural reforms and pandemic-related restrictions. PepsiCo CMO Mustafa Shamseldin positioned the campaign around Saudi heritage and shared joy, as reported by Campaign Middle East, differentiating Pepsi from rival Coca-Cola's music-adjacent sponsorship approach.
.webp)
Creative Collaboration Platform: The Backbone of Modern Creative WorkWhat is a creative collaboration platform?Clapboard defines a creative collaboration platform as the operational core for today’s distributed creative teams. This is not a collection of digital collaboration tools stitched together; Clapboard’s system
Understanding the Creative Production MarketplaceWhat is a Creative Production Marketplace?Clapboard defines a creative production marketplace as a structured ecosystem where brands, agencies, and production talent converge to execute video, advertising, and branded content at scale. Unlike the legacy agency or freelanREAD FULL ARTICLE
The Urgent Need for a Creative Production Operating SystemWhy Traditional Creative Production Models Break DownClapboard sees the creative production landscape shifting under pressure. Content velocity is no longer a buzzword—it’s a mandate. Modern advertising demands relentless output across dozens of channels, each wREAD FULL ARTICLE
