The ad would have been fine if it wasn't for the end bit where Kendall gives the cop and the crowd cheers. It's problematic because it's selling their product as a solution to real serious social issues. If it just ended at her joining the protest and them sharing the Pepsi, it would have been fine. I get what Pepsi was getting at, but I understand the outrage.
To be fair we can't say for certain that Kendall Jenner handing out Pepsi wouldn't solve serious social issues. Now we'll never know.
A more accurate ad would have the cop spraying her will bullets as soon as her hand went up. An aluminum can is a potential weapon, after all.
They should be emptying out the can, poking holes in it, and using it as a bong, and at the end the police should make out with each other like the Manson video. NEXT.
Pepsi wanted people talking about this and expected backlash. No such thing as bad publicity. How many levels of review does a commercial for a company that huge go through, and no one said "This is really insensitive, tone deaf, and, most of all, embarrassingly lame"? Please.
I don't think anyone really complained and Pepsi made this ad intentionally to pull it down claiming people said it was controverisal so we hear about that and waste 5 minutes of our lives watching A Pepsi commercial trying to determine if it's indeed controversial, most agreeing it is not, and discussing it with others. as you can see the video already has over 4 million views in 2 days something something matrix
It's funny how pepsi released an ad that was universally disliked by both people on the right and left.
Customer: I'll have a large Coke. Waitress: We don't serve Coke will Pepsi be ok? Customer: Was the bombing of Pearl Harbor 'ok'?
I thought it was interesting. Non-controversial. But they should have cut the ending anyway because it was ridiculous. You create a an interesting piece of visual art for 2 minutes and end it with a dorky smile.
My problem with the ad was how utterly boring and long it was, 2.5 mins for an ad, ain't nobody got time for that.
The commercial is a little tone-deaf, yes. But this apparent "outrage" is over the top. With that said... Concur. Pepsi executives and legal staff probably aren't idiots. They knew exactly what they were doing here from the beginning. This strategy is old as dirt; many companies have done this in the past. Personally, I thought the commercial was dull.