In order to serve the beverage in their restaurants, Arby’s has an ironclad agreement with Pepsi that it must fulfill an obligation to feature Pepsi in two of their television ads per year. Well, this year, they forgot. After changing up their marketing strategy earlier this year with a new tagline “We Have the Meats,” the new commercials became less of a natural fit to display a frosty glass of Pepsi sitting proudly next to their sandwiches.
So back in October, after Arby’s had only featured Pepsi in one of its 2014 spots, Pepsi gave the fast food chain a little nudge and was like, *ahem* “Remember that thing where you have to mention us twice per year?” and Arby’s was like, “Oh sh*t!” Since they already had their spots shot and planned out through the rest of the year and didn’t want to go back in to already-filmed ads to shoehorn in a product placement, they came up with a solution.
Behold, Arby’s solution. It’s kind of hilariously passive aggressive, but being that the entire 30 second, Ving Rhames-voiced spot is devoted entirely to Pepsi — featuring a twist on the tagline “We Have Pepsi” — Pepsi was able to roll with the joke and in the end they were pretty OK with it. “Pepsi: cool, refreshing, and goes great with Arby’s sandwiches, and other Arby’s food.”
Now THAT, my friends, is how you fix an endorsement deal screw up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jv5StAv77Dg
(Via Wall Street Journal)