So, here's that Pepsi Max ad that made lots of people angry.
Why? Because it seems to imply that the problems of police violence, especially against people of colour, can be solved by a member of the Jenner/Kardashian clan with a cold beverage:
What a different time we live in than 46 years ago, when Coca-Cola quite successfully co-opted the hippie zeitgeist at its very end:
What's different?
Imagine if Coke's iconic "Hilltop"ad, instead of showing a bunch of people singing on a hill (like in The Sound Of Music) instead showed them facing down armed National Guardsmen (like at Kent State in 1970):
Instead of killing four students and wounding nine, in this Coke ad in an alternative 1971, the Ohio National Guardsmen are stopped by a cold beverage. How would the friends and families of the dead and wounded students have felt about the trivialization of their tragedy?
That, I understand, is how many racialized people feel about this week's Pepsi ad in the context of Black Lives Matter.
Pepsi has long had a close relationship with "pop" stars: David Bowie, Tina Turner, Michael Jackson (before his hair caught on fire)... and show can forget this conspicuous consumption of advertising budget?
It just seemed natural that musical celebrities would go for the big sponsorship money. But suddenly, things are changing.
In an open letter to the singer, the Center for Science in the Public Interest and six partners compares today's soft drink celebrity endorsements to the cigarette ads of yore: "'Drink Pepsi and you can be cool like Katy Perry,' is the takeaway message for your young fans. 'Live for now' and worry about the health consequences later."
They also produced this video:
I'm no fan of pushing too much sugar on kids. But have these people ever seen a Katy Perry video?
Vincent just sent me this funny Pepsi ad from Quebec, in which a gang of French Canadian stereotypes attack an American tourist stereotype for daring to drink Coke.
Pepsi has long played the market in Quebec very differently than the "rest of Canada" because the soft drink has a special relationship with the province. It far outsells Coke there now, due to a its dedication to homegrown Quebec-only campaigns that celebrate their unique culture and sense of humour. This relationship is so tight and well-known that, when I was a kid, "Pepsi" was also a derogatory term for our francophone neighbours to the east and north.
The new ad is pretty funny even to this anglo. Anyone have credits?
AdFreak tells us that Pepsi let lapse one of their most famous taglines, the one they paid Michael Jackson gajillions of dollars to promote back when I was a teen:
To capture the imaginations of the current generation of teens, the slogan has been snapped up by... Better Oats?
Oh, man. It may be a healthier option, but this generation's marketing sure does suck.
As #2, Pepsi has a history of implying that Coke truck drivers, etc., would switch to Pepsi if they could. But is this shot at Coke's most famous imaginary icon warranted?
On their Facebook Page, Pepsi Canada today announced the January 24th launch of "Pepsi Throwback" a limited-edition offering in a retro can with real sugar.
Does anyone else think this is a branding mistake?
Ever since the big pop brands switched from cane sugar to high fructose corn syrup (HFCS) back in the 80s, many health advocates have claimed that it made the obesity epidemic worse. The science behind this has been a little dodgy at times, but last year's study on rats at Princeton — which compared weight gain between groups given sugar water compared to groups give watered-down HFCS — found:
"The rats in the Princeton study became obese by drinking high-fructose corn syrup, but not by drinking sucrose. The critical differences in appetite, metabolism and gene expression that underlie this phenomenon are yet to be discovered, but may relate to the fact that excess fructose is being metabolized to produce fat, while glucose is largely being processed for energy or stored as a carbohydrate, called glycogen, in the liver and muscles."
In short, they concluded: "Our findings lend support to the theory that the excessive consumption of high-fructose corn syrup found in many beverages may be an important factor in the obesity epidemic."
The debate will no doubt be ongoing, considering the mighty forces involved: big soda, the U.S. corn lobby, and everyone making a buck on the fact that HFCS is in so many packaged foods. (Look at the label. In Canada, it goes under the alias "glucose-fructose".)
But back to Pepsi. I'm going to assume that this is really a way to test market an HFCS-free formulation without freaking out the corn syrup industry. With the way things are going, it wouldn't be that surprising if HFCS continues to fall out of favour with health-conscious consumers.
But what if this really is just a "limited time offer"? By drawing consumers' attention to the "real sugar" in Pepsi Throwback, they are also drawing attention to the fact that what they've been selling you has something else in it — something less desirable. If I take off my food activist hat, and put back my adman fedora for a moment, I have to point out that this is bad for the overall brand.
Unless they make it a permanent change. Which I really hope they do.
UPDATE: According to The Consumerist, Pepsi in the USA announced that they will continue to produce the sugar version for as long as sales support it. So I can only assume the Canadian strategy is similar.
Created by British agency Cake, it's a nice summary of where the whole ad business is going.
For traditional advertisers, though, this brave new world can be quite intimidating. Just the other day, someone was asking me what the best practices were for creating a social media presence for a cause: should the image and voice be "official" or "personal"?
I, obviously, prefer the latter, but this is easier said than lived by people like us. We have spent entire careers in a world where brands were engineered down to the tiniest detail—complete with lengthy rulebooks and "brand cops" who would ensure everyone toed the line.
Today's brands truly evolve. They live or die by the whim of the Internet's vocal hordes—truly a force of nature. "Adapt or die" is no longer a marketing cliche. It is the only way.
So what does that really mean? Let's look at "Big Soda". Pepsi is gambling on its customers being altrusitic with the Pepsi Refresh Project, giving away more than a million bucks in Canada "to help fund Canadians’ ideas for moving the world forward in a positive ways".
Coca-Cola, for its Dr. Pepper brand, tried a different tactic in the UK. To try to position the pop as a more edgy brand, they hired a social media agency to create a campaign in which users would opt in to having their Facebook status hijacked by saucy messages and images referencing porn and things like peeing in the shower. This ended up as an object lesson in the demographics of social media, as outraged helicopter parents used their own social networks to force the campaign down.
I don't really think there are hard and fast "best practices" yet in social branding. Everyone is still feeling their way. But every win or fail by a major brand willing to take risks is building the stock of case studies that will help us all figure this thing out. And that makes this a very exciting time to be an "adman".
Speaking of social media, I'm taking a break from it next week. I'll be back on August 23 with another Burundi Monday.
The following is not a deleted scene from Idiocracy.
PepsiCo has filed a false advertising suit against Coca-Cola Co. over the number of electrolytes in their respective sports drinks.
Check out the claims on the POWERADE site. (And turn your speakers down.)
What's funny is what the legal argument says about the industry in general:
PepsiCo unit Stokely-Van Camp Inc., the maker of Gatorade, alleges the ads falsely claim that Powerade Ion4 sports drink is "the complete sports drink" and Gatorade is "missing two electrolytes" and "incomplete." The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan.
"There is no evidence, scientific or otherwise, that Powerade Ion functions better than Gatorade as a sports drink," the lawsuit said. "There is no evidence that Powerade Ion will help consumers achieve better hydration, have more energy or get nutrients that will result in improved athletic performance."
The complaint claims there is no evidence the "minute quantities of magnesium and calcium" present in the Powerade drink make it superior to Gatorade.
Let's have a reality check here: the two major ingredients in sports drinks are sugar and salt. Some public health advocates even want them declared junk food, and taken out of schools:
"...a report from the University of California at Berkeley warns that students who drink one 20-ounce sports drink every day for a year may gain about 13 pounds. This is no surprise to some nutritionists, who note that when you look at the ingredients, it's water, high-fructose corn syrup, and salt."
But what about those other electrolytes? According to the sports medicine article on About.com:
Sports drinks can be helpful to athletes who are exercising at a high intensity for 60 minutes or more. Fluids supplying 60 to 100 calories per 8 ounces helps to supply the needed calories required for continuous performance. It's really not necessary to replace losses of sodium, potassium and other electrolytes during exercise since you're unlikely to deplete your body's stores of these minerals during normal training. If, however, you find yourself exercising in extreme conditions over 3 or 5 hours (a marathon, Ironman or ultramarathon, for example) you may likely want to add a complex sports drink with electrolytes.
"We stand behind our product and are prepared to defend the role Powerade plays in hydrating consumers," Coke said in a statement received later on Monday.
All I can get out of the latest chapter of the Pepsi Challenge is that both Pepsi and Coke offer tasty sports drinks that can give you a sugar boost and replace salt and potassium lost in extreme workouts. (They're also good for hangovers.) One contains two more meaningless trace elements than another. Case closed. Pass the Gatorade.
