Demi Moore-Kevin Bacon Pepsi Smackdown

by Nicki Gostin, Posted Feb 1st 2010 @ 3:30PM

Look out! Demi Moore and Kevin Bacon are having a throw down, and they went on the Today Show to duke it out. There were no blows exchanged, but the two are in friendly competition to win a large donation from a new charity set up by Pepsi Cola.

It's called the Pepsi Refresh Project and this year it will award more than $20 million to different charities, which fall under six categories: Health, Arts and Culture, Food and Shelter, The Planet, Neighborhoods and Education. Anyone can apply for grant money, which ranges from five thousand dollars to $250,000. Proposals are posted online and then people can vote for their favorite ideas -- a visitor can vote for up to 10 different projects a day. Ideas can be submitted until the 15th or until Pepsi receives 1,000 applications and then voting ends at the end of the month with an announcement of winners on March 1.

According to the New York Times, this scheme is trying to tap into a trend called cause-related marketing or pro-social marketing, where big companies attempt to show they really are socially conscious and not greedy corporations.

Kevin Bacon is excited about this development. "Hopefully this is the wave of the future," he told Slashfood. "A company can use their actual ad dollars for something that not only has a positive effect for their product but a positive effect for the world."

Since celebrities have a little more clout than the rest of us, they are competing in their own special celebrity category. Demi is campaigning in support of GEMS – Girls Educational and Mentoring Services. She aims to raise money to pay for 10 outreach workers who will help girls who have been sexually exploited or trafficked. Kevin's stumping for his own charity called SixDegrees.org.

"We offer a thing called a good card," explained Bacon, "which I can purchase and give to you for any amount and you can in turn donate that money to any kind of cause. It kind of gives twice. You feel good giving it and you feel good receiving it because you get to use it for something positive.

"People will come to SixDegrees.org and register and we will send out thousands of these good cards and I am going to personally reach out to these people and encourage them to keep paying it forward."

Unfortunately "personally reach out" does not mean that Kevin will be ringing your doorbell unexpectedly.

"I don't think I'll be able to do that," he laughed, "because it could be up to 10,000 people. In this case I'll send an email or a message."

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Filed Under: Celebrities, Drinks
Tags: demi moore kevin bacon today show, pepsi, pepsi refresh, pepsi refresh project