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Yesterday, Pepsi launched a TV spot starring Kendall Jenner which most definitely met the number one rule of ad execs everywhere: Get noticed. But in the internet era, the idea that “all press is good press” is laughable — especially when a backlash leaves a brand on the wrong side of wokeness. On Twitter, the retribution was swift and every outlet in the country has since covered the firestorm (and the subsequent memes). This morning, Pepsi issued a second statement and the ad was pulled.
Interestingly, Kendall Jenner handing a cop a Pepsi and thereby brokering a solution to complex problems has the exact same theme as the most famous soft drink campaign ever, “I’d like to buy the world a Coke.” But Coca-Cola had three things going for it with that spot: 1) It first ran in 1971, when brands cheering on diversity was fresh and seemed like part of the solution; 2) it was vague enough to not be shredded for co-opting imagery of the era; and 3) it represented peace, but didn’t depict the implied conflict.
The Pepsi ad, on the other hand borrowed the visual cues and, more importantly, the frustration of a movement that has defined this decade: Black Lives Matter. In the clip, a marching crowd — full of that electric “this is our moment” energy — inspires a model (surrounded by artifice), a musician (practicing on a rooftop for no audience), and a photographer (who is almost confusingly enraged by her tear sheets) to take to the streets. Then, when Kendall rips off her wig and shares a Pepsi with a police officer, the crowd erupts in joyous applause.
This is their moment all right, and one beautiful person just showed an entire generation how to create change with help from a cold soda. It’s almost too easy to mock, but it does beg a bigger question: In an age when brands neatly notch into every part of our lives, is there a place for them in the protest conversation?
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Steve, saw the headline and knew it was you. I admire your passion even though I thought the Nike commercial was great when I was a kid.
I did too, but looking back… feels off, right?
@OhMyBalls if you recognized my article by headline alone, does that mean that my #brand is becoming more prominent? If so, please tell my publishers.
It feels odd in tone as well as substance. I mean, all the things that were not to be televised were indeed televised. Right down to the mascot dunking with a trampoline.
On the other hand- KG appears to be rocking the Air Force Maxs and those kicks are sick!
Call it a wash.
@Steve Bramucci your publishers are aware. Expect a case of Pepsi by the end of the week.
This is America after all, so of course what prompted the backlash isn’t necessarily the idea of Pepsi cosigning a movement, but how they had nothing to say other than “Drink Pepsi”. Appropriating culture or co-opting protests/movements or aligning with popular trends are just marketing techniques as old as capitalism. We, meaning anybody associated with the “resistance” or BLM or any other left-leaning movement, are not looking to Pepsi or any corporation to sponsor the protest. But, if a business wants to enter the conversation beside these movements, have more to say than the word ‘peace’ in a couple of languages and ‘join the conversation’…I mean, how milquetoast, how boringly safe, how just-on-the-fringes of what is actually happening that one can still have plausible deniability about the message behind the advert. It is a stance so purposefully vague in an attempt to say something that makes everybody happy, that it ultimately says nothing and makes a lot of people annoyed.
NAILED
IT
Now more than ever before do we need a heroic man like Darren Rovell to eloquently show us how a #brand can better connect to all of us within the #Brandiverse for the sake of all of #Brandkind.
Rovell makes my “If I could punch someone in the face consequence free” top ten list.
I’m pretty sure that Chinese symbol, being held up by a black person means “garlic.”
Steve, you beautiful bastard, have stated the positives of #brandwokeness eloquently. I don’t think companies can have it both ways though. If a company employs a single lobbyist in Washington (or whatever capital you choose if we’re speaking globally), there’s an extreme hypocrisy in supporting an equal and opposite protest movement.
It could be interesting, however, to promote corporate lobbying based on a protest movement. Like take the $3+ million Pepsi spent on this ad and send a fucking lawyer to Washington to promote police accountability. Then, insert the brand after the work has already started. It’s the method that matters — which again, you’ve stated above — and Pepsi missed the mark badly.
@Alcoholics Gratuitous Jesus, I’m in love with this idea:
“Like take the $3+ million Pepsi spent on this ad and send a fucking lawyer to Washington to promote police accountability. Then, insert the brand after the work has already started.”
That would require taking a side and pissing off potential Pepsi drinkers.
Welcome to the world of Twitter hashtag activism.
No one would be complaining if Kylie Jenner wasn’t the messenger. They would be talking about how so, so brave it was. The creators were just dumb enough to have a “celebrity” casually doing a photo shoot during the commercial. Half a dozen commercials during the Super Bowl did the same type of thing.
Reminds me of the SNL Cheetos ad pitches. The lazier people get with their activism, the lazier companies will get on trying to capitalize on it.
Your article completely misses the point of what is offensive in that commercial. Firstly brands will never have a seat at the table of protest because they use market testing to gauge what SELLS. They will never have the individuals concerns at heart. Put it this way, the ad has the soft focus shots of the trans couple. Would Pepsi have used trans people in such a way 5 years ago? You can bet your ass they wouldn’t. This protest is ‘join the conversation’ (vomit) but branding itself is about affiliation and separation. They are not a part of the conversation. They are following it, and when the martyrs are vindicated and the taboo’s broken, they come in like vulture to pick the bones. What this commercial represents is the sick celebrity culture, with a model from the role models of vapid consumerism where nothing matters but being in people’s attention, trying to co-opt protests of people demanding basic fucking equality. This is a sign of how far apart these poles now are that this commercial made it from writing, production, editing and screening that no one with a brain and voice said this is insensitive and poor taste.
If your point is that we cannot escape brands, you are wrong again. If Pepsi were part of the conversation they would have stuck with it add and said this is valid to the conversation… but oh wait, the ad was hurting the brand….
@Fred Bob I’m pretty sure we hit most of that. No?
**The final product reads more like, “Wait everyone, I’ve got this, let me just give the cop a cold drink and your very valid concerns will fizzle into the ether like so many carbonated bubbles.”**
I think the biggest issue is Kendall Jenner. If it was some random photogenic person it would just be another corny TV commercial, but putting her in it is so out of touch its comical. She’s basically the Donald Trump of the celebrity world, achieving everything without earning it. Which is kinda a common thread in the women’s rights/resist/BLM movement.
America, home of everyone offended at some point no matter how meaningless or trivial. We have it all. Are you offended because of a commercial, we have it. Are you offended because Wonder Woman does not have under arm hair in her latest trailer, we have it. Are you offended because someone has a different opinion than you, we have it.
I think, in this case, people are offended by the lack of opinion. A big company tried to enter an important conversation, but all they had to say was “try our drink!”
Why would anyone expect or care about PepsiCo’s stance on the resistance movement?
@ Eazye
Honestly, man, if all you’ve got is outrage at other people’s outrage you could just as easily never type those thoughts on the internet and solve your own problem.
@ cycocy
I don’t think anyone expected Pepsi to have a position on the resistance movement expect, you know, Pepsi chose to have a position on it. Even if that position was weak, middle-of-the-middle, laughable nonsense. When was the last time you saw a protest about anything where people were carrying peace signs made out of the Pepsi logo? Or signs that said “Join the conversation”? I mean, come on now. Pepsi tried to blatantly co-opt a social justice movement in very poorly conceived way. Their attempt didn’t say, hey, we actually understand your pain and share your ambitions. All they said was, your thing seems like a thing we can tie our brand to for easy street cred.
So the position they’ve taken is inadvertently insulting to people with valid social justice concerns, or anyone who’s ever actually engaged in a real protest for a serious issue.
And I haven’t even touched upon the terrible creative aspects of the spot yet.
All in all, the people who created this spot for Pepsi should be fucking embarrassed of themselves.
@Iron Mike Sharpie yes, what you said: Pepsi wedged themselves into convo.
Brands aren’t companies. Brands are the visage crafted for products to connect with an audience and ultimately maximize sales. Brands that co-op movements and do so for self serving purposes without returning benefits to said movement are disingenuous at best. However a company that truly champions a cause and supports it financially or otherwise can be organic and genuine. Pepsi’s alignment with these broad unspecified causes is not backed by true investment in those causes or tangibly supportive of or engaged with the activists and communities. It comes off as a ploy with benefits only reaped by the brand. If PepsiCo had a philanthropic history of supporting these causes prior to the ad it might come across as less contrived.
Well put.
Actually (puts on nerdlinger advertising guy glasses) brands are companies. Brands are the over-arching image people have of the company that sells the product(s). In the particular case of this spot, Pepsi is the brand (because the parent company is called Pepsi) AND it’s the product (because the soda is also called Pepsi).
I think this campaign could have worked as a condom commercial
There’s a sentiment in marketing that I utterly hate but have heard countless times over the years: “You’re not making the ad for the audience, you’re making it for the head of the company.” That’s the M.O behind how you get something like this. A commercial that reads like the Pepsi president’s wet dream. Youthful, prospective buyers treating their product like a socio-political cure-all bound for a pedestal in the Smithsonian or Louvre. It’s fizzy sugar-water. Not that that’s bad, butjJust show a glass of it next to the can for 30sec. If that doesn’t make you want a Pepsi then I don’t know what will.
” A commercial that reads like the Pepsi president’s wet dream.” Yes! And it was a dream which no one was brave enough to interrupt, @The Saint of Killers