Introduction
It has been a few months since an ad campaign from a company would cause a bunch of controversy. Like did marketers/brands forget about which type of people they are targeting in their ads? Did they forget to think about the people around them and how they would react to this kind of stuff? They need to be cautious about not offending any group of people otherwise the message of the advertisement would be going in the wrong direction. I have mentioned a bunch of things that brands, companies and marketers should do and not do when it comes to advertising back in my Dove Ad response blog; tips like thinking about the people around you and how they will think about the ad is one of those tips that I mentioned in my blog and that advertisers should be aware of. You might not know if your ad will give away a positive or negative response depending on the audience you're targeting for your ads. For the Dove ad situation, the issue of that ad was "racism" despite the transition where a black woman transforms into a white woman after using the product shown in the Dove ad. In this blog, we will be covering the infamous police brutality Pepsi ad which was made back in Summer 2017.
Situation
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This was the scene that started it all to where all this controversy became a trend worldwide.
Source: newyorker.com |
With all the police brutality happening around at that time or at least until now, a famous model by the name of Kendall Jenner decided to try and bring justice in police brutality by showcasing it in an ad sponsored by the soda brand, Pepsi. As seen in the advertisement, a peaceful protest was ongoing between a group of people and the police department. Kendall was found in the crowds and decided to give a police officer a can of Pepsi. The officer accepts her offer and the crowds started cheering and clapping for her. When social media users saw this advertisement from Pepsi, they took it upon their own hands and analyzed it stating that Pepsi saw the work Black Lives Matter have been working on and that Pepsi appreciated them for their work. However, with the use of Kendall Jenner in the ad, social media users thought that it made the protesting group not important in any case scenario or not matter at all. This was when some of social media were triggered by this advertisement and started controversy with the Pepsi ad.
My Response
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This tweet about the Pepsi Commercial came from Martin Luther King Jr.'s
daughter where she tweets "If only Daddy (MLK Jr.) would have known about
the power of Pepsi." with a picture of MLK in contact with a cop.
Source: mirror.co.uk |
I don't know what's even worse; Social media or the way Pepsi organized this ad. I mean if you want to address this advertisement with inspiration from Black Lives Matter, it needs proof to support your opinion. This kind of proof that Pepsi gave to us felt like a joke to Black Lives Matter like they made it look like Black Lives didn't even matter at all in this worse case scenario. If I was the one to put this commercial together, I would use the black race for the group instead of other races and then use a famous black celebrity to give the officer a Pepsi. However this commercial would be more of a Black Lives Matter ad campaign more than a Pepsi commercial. Additionally, it would make sense to use the black race in this commercial because it wouldn't be an inspirational Black Lives Matter commercial if there is no blacks leading the protest. Like c'mon Pepsi. I would rather worry about the treatment Black Lives Matter has endured than Kendall Jenner getting backlashed for the commercial (no offence to Kendall). In my opinion, if Pepsi didn't choose Kendall Jenner as the main character in the commercial, this controversy wouldn't happen in the first place. But social media had to do it to Kendall Jenner. On the social media side of this commercial, I would have to agree with them on this but at the same time not because this doesn't affect me as much as it affects Black Lives Matter and Pepsi. In my opinion, social media blames Pepsi for this ad more than Kendall Jenner. When Kendall heard the news about the backlash Pepsi got from social media, she was heartbroken because this was what Pepsi paid her to do in this commercial and that she thought the message would go through positively but instead went negatively. I will end this discussion right here so until then, see you in the next blog!
