“We remain in the middle of a brand marketing crisis.” This is how Frank Cooper, senior vice president and chief consumer engagement officer at PepsiCo, summed up the state of play at this year’s Interactive Advertising Bureau annual confab of marketing heavies. He calls on brands to stop talking down to consumers and bring them “onto the pedestal with us by using technology to facilitate experiences.”

Social media marketing, of course, is integral to this strategy. So far three PepsiCo brands have been using social media extensively in their their outreach marketing: Doritos, with user-generated commercials on their YouTube channel; Mountain Dew, with their Dewmocracy “campaign”; and Pepsi’s own Pepsi Refresh project, essentially a contest for who can come up with the best idea that “will have a positive impact” on the planet.

Pepsi’s Refresh Project in particular is a noble attempt at brand-driven beneficence, not to mention a ground-breaking approach to marketing. Indeed, Cooper says, “You need to have an insurgent mindset, even if you’re at the top of your game.”

The explicit goal of all this is to help consumers “define themselves” through the brand’s “identity value” – a sort of brand introjection, if you will.

To this point, Pepsi’s Bonin Bough explains, the Refresh Project is more about creating a movement than a moment. That’s no easy feat. Movements take time and require input from the community, something you cannot achieve in a 30-second spot or even in an ad campaign.

But should companies see this as a crisis or just some refreshing new thinking?