Pepsi — a famous soda company — released a controversial advertisement back in 2017. The commercial featured celebrity and media personality, Kendall Jenner. The commercial depicted a big peace protest in the middle of the streets. The protest consisted of a diverse crowd holding up signs with messages such as “peace,” “join the conversation,” and displaying police officers near the end of the commercial. However, the message of the commercial was still unclear due to the lack of meaning and rationalization. Ultimately, the rhetoric in the ad was unsuccessful because the content of the ad failed to relate to the viewers emotionally (pathos), the logic doesn’t make any sense (logos), and the company Pepsi failed to efficiently portray Jenner in a meaningful manner (ethos). The commercial was removed by Pepsi followed by an apology to the public regarding the content of their ad.
This Pepsi Commercial was released in April 2017, which was relevant to the #BlackLivesMatter protests at that time, and the police brutality incidents in areas like Baltimore and Louisiana. The commercial tries to mimic a Black Lives Matter protest involving Ieshia Evans. Ieshia Evans approached an armed police officer in Baton Rouge but was arrested by officers wearing riot gear. A photo of Evans being arrested became viral on the internet and sparked outrage on social media. However, in the Pepsi commercial, Kendall Jenner who is a white female born into wealth by her celebrity parents approaches a non-intimidating male officer (who is neither armed nor wearing any riot gear) and hands him a can of Pepsi, which somehow ends up making everyone cheer.
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The reasoning behind this Pepsi commercial is unclear. The ad depicts a protest, and although there are peace signs, it’s not clear what is being protested. At the end of the commercial, Kendall Jenner (a model and media celebrity) is seen handing a can of Pepsi to a police officer; this results in the protesters all cheering. There is no significant meaning to this interaction between Jenner and the officer, nor does the ad explain the relationship between Pepsi and peace. This lack of coherence in the commercial makes the audience skeptical about buying Pepsi because the company does not successfully bridge the gap between how peace and Pepsi relate to one another. The commercial fails to brand Pepsi in a way that makes their soda significant to the concept of peace, in fact, the commercial leaves the audience confused about the message rather than persuaded.
The main character in this commercial is Kendall Jenner. Kendall Jenner is a model and a media personality, known for her role in the reality television show “Keeping Up with the Kardashians.” She is also the daughter of Kris Jenner (Kris Kardashian) and Caitlyn Jenner (previously known as Bruce Jenner). As a result of both her TV appearance and her famous parents, Kendall Jenner is a celebrity, which may bring a lot of credibility to an advertisement due to her influence. Kendall Jenner is no doubt a role model for young adults and hopefully seeing their role model on screen promoting peace will persuade them to buy Pepsi. However, given the context of the ad — which consists of a peace protest involving a variety of multi-ethnic protesters, and police officers — Kendall Jenner’s background as a white female born into a family of wealth doesn’t really make sense in the commercial. Although Jenner does have a huge following, her background as a white celebrity doesn’t do the protest justice especially if the Pepsi commercial is indirectly referring to the #BlackLivesMatter protest.
The commercial starts out by showing a man playing a cello, and a woman being frustrated while studying photographs. Both of them end up joining a gigantic protest taking place on the street. Simultaneously, Jenner is seen doing a photoshoot in which she draws her attention towards the protest. In the video, she makes eye contact with the man with the cello and gets persuaded to join the protest, and rips off her wig in the process. This scene including Jenner and the two other individuals joining a huge protest can elicit a feeling of unity. Accompanied by messages like “Peace,” and the peace sign, the use of positive feelings may appeal to the emotions of the viewer. However, without any explanation or clarification to suggest what the peace protest is about, the ad only leaves the audience feeling puzzled rather than a feeling of unity or peace.
Furthermore, the commercial does not explicitly clarify who the target audience is or explain what the peace protests are about. It almost seems like Pepsi is hesitant to do an actual commercial depicting real-world events regarding police brutality. As a result, they choose to do a vague commercial about “peace,” and “harmony.“ Audiences (especially those involved in the police brutality protests) gave backlash to Pepsi because the company was not correctly portraying the actual situation and making light of a serious matter. At one point, Kendall Jenner ends up ripping off her wig and making a black woman hold it, and then attending a protest about peace (protests which are based on the #BlackLivesMatter protests). Although Pepsi might not have been aware of this scene, it did spark some outrage as it could have been misinterpreted as white privilege. Additionally, it is important to note that Pepsi is a soft-drink company. The idea of achieving world peace simply by making people drink Pepsi is ridiculous and has no correlation to reality. The idea that drinking Pepsi would somehow solve conflicts, makes the drink unattractive to potential buyers and is simply false advertising.
The 2017 Pepsi Commercial was unsuccessful. There is no clear goal or message in the ad campaign, nor does it portray any meaning to the audience. Rather, the ad campaign leaves the audience confused. Pepsi fails to make it clear what the protest is about which forces the viewer to assume that the protest is referring to the #BlackLivesMatter protests that had recently occurred when the ad was released. The ad campaign is poorly thought out and fails to use rhetorical tools like ethos, pathos, and logos. Despite, being released during a period where there was a lot of visibility around multiple cases of police brutality, Pepsi was unable to capitalize on a perfect opportunity to send an actual meaningful message about unity. Instead, Pepsi does the exact opposite by making light of a serious issue and inaccurately portraying the situation. Pepsi could have found more effective ways in selling Kendall Jenner (a highly influential media personality, that could’ve propelled the campaign in a positive direction) to the audience. Overall, the ad campaign ended up being a total failure and often joked about: “Pepsi soda, the ultimate peace negotiator.”
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