Social Media vs Traditional Media: "The New Pepsi Challenge"

So there I am watching the Super Bowl on Sunday and notice that I am not seeing one Pepsi commercial.  I look at my friends and say hey isn't Pepsi going to run their commercials.  I found out quickly this morning that Pepsi had made the decision to not run their commercials and decided to take a new approach to marketing their product.  This is not new, Pepsi has always done a great job of going after that younger generation and most of us remember the TV commercials they ran in the Eighties with Michael Jackson  "The Choice of a New Generation".  Well it looks like Pepsi is back to their roots and has decided to go down the social media route to attract a newer generation.  My good friend and collegue Stephen Garner wrote a perfect post called 80 Million Reasons to start changing your marketing....Millennials.  He wrote this after I commented on why I feel you should never divorce yourself from having not only an excellent social media marketing platform but also using a traditional marketing platform to work in tandum with one another.  . 

Recently Time Magazine wrote a piece called:  Behind Pepsi's Choice to Skip This Year's Super Bowl talking about Pepsi's decision to go down the social media campaign path. 

 from Time Magazine: By Sean Gregory

 "Instead of pouring millions of dollars into a Super Bowl commercial, Pepsi has started a social-media campaign to promote its "Pepsi Refresh" initiative. Pepsi plans to give away $20 million in grant money to fund projects in six categories: health, arts and culture, food and shelter, the planet, neighborhoods and education. People can go to the Pepsi website refresheverything.com"

Prior to this decision, Pepsi has advertised in 23 consecutive Superbowls.  The problem I see with this decision by Pepsi is that they just lost a great opportunity to connect with a 100 million strong audience and they separated themselves from their current market base and generations.  Heck, can we say 23 years down the tube.  Again, I understand the direction Pepsi has decided to take and I understand viral marketing is very effective on the internet, but I feel they missed the boat on this one.  There is a big demographic out there that does not get their information from the social media world.  My wife is a great example of this.  She is not on facebook, does not understand twitter and frankly does like to connect outside her own little world.  I know hundreds of people who are just like this.  That is why when I send something out to my database it goes snail mail and email.  I use all the benefits of social media, but still continue with my traditional methods.  For me connections are connections.  I want to connect and if that means having to use traditional methods, so be it.     

What is your opinion on this matter.  Did Pepsi miss the boat or not?