Pepsi pulls Kendall Jenner ad after social media backlash

[webfact]

Pepsi pulls Kendall Jenner ad after social media backlash

By Scott Malone and Tim Baysinger

REUTERS

 

Pepsi bottles are seen on display in New York July 19, 2010. PepsiCo reports results for its second quarter on July 20. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton/Files

 

(Reuters) - PepsiCo <PEP.N> pulled a commercial featuring model Kendall Jenner on Wednesday after the ad prompted outrage and ridicule from those who said it trivialized rights protests and public unrest in the United States.

 

The ad, released late on Tuesday, shows the fashion celebrity and reality TV star in a photo shoot when she sees protesters marching. Removing her wig and makeup, Jenner joins the crowd and hands a baseball cap-wearing police officer a can of Pepsi, prompting him to smile while marchers cheer and hug.

 

"Pepsi was trying to project a global message of unity, peace and understanding," the company said in a statement. "Clearly we missed the mark, and we apologise. We did not intend to make light of any serious issue. We are removing the content and halting any further rollout."

 

Pepsi also apologised to Jenner. A representative for Jenner did not return a call for comment.

 

The spot drew criticism on Twitter, with users saying it belittled the anti-police violence protests over recent years in cities including Ferguson, Missouri, and Baltimore following police killings of unarmed black men and women.

 

Pepsi said the ad was created by its in-house shop, Creators League Studio. Charlie Hopper, principal and writer at advertising agency Young & Laramore said such backlash is a risk brands take when they lack outside perspective.

 

"This is a good example of what happens when you don't get the objective input of a classic agency relationship that can say, 'We need to save you from your worst impulses,'" he said.

 

'THIS AD IS TRASH'

 

Observers quickly condemned the ad, which did not make clear what the marchers were protesting.

 

"If I had carried Pepsi, I guess I never would have gotten arrested. Who knew?" activist DeRay McKesson, one of the best-known voices of the Black Lives Matter movement, tweeted. "Pepsi, this ad is trash."

 

Bernice King, daughter of civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr., whose assassination occurred 49 years ago on the day Pepsi's ad debuted, tweeted a picture of her father protesting as an officer's hand grips his chest, with the caption: "If only Daddy would have known about the power of #Pepsi."

 

Many on Twitter criticized the advertisement as a play on today's Black Lives Matter movement, and circulated a 2016 image of Leshia Evans as a point of comparison. Evans, standing passively and wearing a dress, was detained by police in riot gear during a protest in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, not long after the fatal shooting of Alton Sterling by police.

 

It was not the first time Pepsi has touched a nerve. In 2013, it pulled an online ad for its Mountain Dew beverage amid complaints the spot embraced racial stereotypes and made light of violence toward women. The ad featured a battered white woman on crutches trying to pick out her assailant from a police lineup featuring five African-American men and a goat.

 

Dr. Boyce Watkins, a social commentator and author, had called that ad "arguably the most racist commercial in history."

Wall Street appeared unfazed by the flap, with PepsiCo trading marginally higher at $112.17.

 

(Reporting by Scott Malone and Tim Baysinger and Anya George Tharakan, additional reporting by Angela Moon; writing by Franklin Paul; editing by Meredith Mazzilli and Richard Chang)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2017-04-06

[stevenl]

People can be overly sensitive.

sent using Tapatalk

[steven100]

more PC bullshit .....    I just see this morning where in Australia the government is requesting teachers instill gender equality within fairy tales from now on ... and teachers cannot say princess to a girl or champ to a boy ...

 

absolutely lost the plot Australia ... !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[tonray]

Relax....it's the free market at work. Remember free markets ? 

[PremiumLane]

54 minutes ago, steven100 said:

more PC bullshit .....    I just see this morning where in Australia the government is requesting teachers instill gender equality within fairy tales from now on ... and teachers cannot say princess to a girl or champ to a boy ...

 

absolutely lost the plot Australia ... !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

actually they are not, it is a guideline and not policy and it doesn't say teachers can't say princess to a girl - typical fake outrage and no understanding of nuance 

[steven100]

Just now, PremiumLane said:

actually they are not, it is a guideline and not policy and it doesn't say teachers can't say princess to a girl - typical fake outrage and no understanding of nuance 

disagree ....  even as a guideline,  I still consider they continue to go overboard with PC' ness ....    it's ridiculous.

but, if you support this call then thats up to u.  The do-gooders have wrecked Australia anyway, so more rubbish like this will just add to the existing pile of garbage they continue to spew out. imo

[williamgeorgeallen]

 

[williamgeorgeallen]

pussy generation not what i had hoped it would be.

[i claudius]

All the little snowflakes moaning on social media , God help us if there was ever a war and they couldnt find their safe spaces .

[helpisgood]

45 minutes ago, i claudius said:

All the little snowflakes moaning on social media , God help us if there was ever a war and they couldnt find their safe spaces .

 

I think, if I understand you correctly, that you have missed the point.  If this was just about political correctness, you'd have my sympathy.  This is different.

 

It's about trivializing important public issues by suggesting that their product, a sugary soft drink, can resolve strong differences in public affairs.  I don't think that the ad tries to make fun of either the demonstrators or the police, per se.  That would be a p.c. issue. 

 

Instead, Pepsi has the unmitigated gall to try to conflate their soft drink with humans being able to resolve troubling public disputes and problems.  Yes, just agree that will all love a cold soft drink on a hot day and peace in the world will follow.  Now, associate that wonderful - albeit unrealistic - feeling with our product and keep choosing Pepsi. 

 

What's next?  Will Shias and Sunnis cast aside their ancient differences because they all love to have a cold, sweetened beverage under the hot Iraqi sun?

[mtls2005]

I guess it was filmed here (in Bangkok) in February? Certainly the opening roof-top shot was in Bangkok.

 

Amazing that this ad made it through concept, production and release; evidently no grown-ups in the room. Besides the "message", it looked very poorly made.

 

And probably not the best date to release the ad (49th anniversary of the assassination of Dr. King).

Edited April 6, 2017 by mtls2005

[Scott]

1 hour ago, i claudius said:

All the little snowflakes moaning on social media , God help us if there was ever a war and they couldnt find their safe spaces .

What do you mean, 'find their safe spaces'?   There's still room in Europe, isn't there?

[hdkane]

I wish all the LGBTXYZQ whatever would simply understand that their "opposition" is merely a strawman that this particular community created out of nowhere to gain status as "victims"...no one really cares...for decades, no one cared if someone was gay...and no one cares if someone is "trans"...what annoys people is having personal fetish behaviors acted out publically...and being told that more typical people are "phobic" if we don't tolerate said behavior...the normative population would also be annoyed if heterosexuals acted so brazenly...trans people are not "brave" or "victims"...they are psychologically disturbed to some degree, and want their fetish not simply tolerated, but accepted...that's a lot to expect from someone that has no personal connection to you...in other words, the vast number of people in the usa do not care about your sex or gender, they merely want to be left alone and not labeled "racist" "homophobic" or "anti-whatever" because they hold a different opinion...that's real and genuine diversity--where everyone can have their own opinions and ideas.

[mtls2005]

http://www.pepsico.com/live/pressrelease/pepsi-debuts-moments-campaign-starring-kendall-jenner04042017

 

followed shortly by...

 

http://www.pepsico.com/live/pressrelease/pepsi-statement-re--pepsi-moments-content04052017

 

Pepsi Statement Re: Pepsi Moments Content
 
4/5/2017

PURCHASE, N.Y., April 5, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- "Pepsi was trying to project a global message of unity, peace and understanding. Clearly we missed the mark, and we apologize. We did not intend to make light of any serious issue. We are removing the content and halting any further rollout. We also apologize for putting Kendall Jenner in this position."

SOURCE Pepsi

 

 

Maybe they should try reformulating to New Pepsi, what could go wrong.

[cruisemonkey]

<deleted> is Kendall Jenner?

[steven100]

the world has gone crazy ....  someone whinges about an add on TV that it might hurt someone's feeling or it might send the wrong message or bla .... bla ..... bla.

 

absolutely ridiculous ....

[Tawan Dok Krating Daeng]

3 hours ago, hdkane said:

I wish all the LGBTXYZQ whatever would simply understand that their "opposition" is merely a strawman that this particular community created out of nowhere to gain status as "victims"...no one really cares...for decades, no one cared if someone was gay...and no one cares if someone is "trans"...what annoys people is having personal fetish behaviors acted out publically...and being told that more typical people are "phobic" if we don't tolerate said behavior...the normative population would also be annoyed if heterosexuals acted so brazenly...trans people are not "brave" or "victims"...they are psychologically disturbed to some degree, and want their fetish not simply tolerated, but accepted...that's a lot to expect from someone that has no personal connection to you...in other words, the vast number of people in the usa do not care about your sex or gender, they merely want to be left alone and not labeled "racist" "homophobic" or "anti-whatever" because they hold a different opinion...that's real and genuine diversity--where everyone can have their own opinions and ideas.

 

How did the issue of a corporate entity misapropriating the long history of protest for civil rights become an anti-LGBT thing? Lots of people protesting about institutionalized racism, abuse by authority, failed right wing economic models and failed left wing economic models. Yet you choose to read LGBT into this and use it as a platform for standard, typical homophobic bigotry that is quite ordinary, uninspired and lacking originality - as insults go. This is a clear marker for a person to start understanding th term 'internalized homophobia'.

 

Your quite ignorant claim that nobody cared about LGBT issues in the past does not take account of the oppression and criminalization of LGBT people. Of course nobody talked about it. They would go to jail. Once people started talking about it - and protesting - people started to become aware. They started to understand that they know LGBT people personally within the family, or at work or in the neighborhood. As a result, a majority of American's accept marriage equality. That issue is resolved by the Supreme Court and a recent ruing by the Appeals Court has applied the Civil Rights Act to LGBT people and that ruling is not being appealed to the Supreme Court. As a result of activism, we now have a majority of Americans not supporting transphobic 'bathroom' bills.

 

That is what activism inspires.

 

Your argument? Leave me along. Don't make me think about this. Do what you want in private but don't shove it down the throats of others. You claim straight society does not to this. Crap. The structure of western societies validates the straight world and LGBT people have been forced to accept this silently.

 

You wish to maintain your safe space by denying the fundamental human rights of minorities. Well, here's some news for you bud, you can't. Since the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which states that all persons must be allowed their dignity, then you may not marginalise or diminish other people because of your own bigotry. If you do so, then you will be rightly called out as a bigot. Get used to it and stop whining. Or stop expressing bigotry. I don't care which one you choose. You are on the fringe of polite society. You are on the cusp of a generational change away from your base, grubby and cringe-worthy prejudices based on nothing more than fear, misinformation and ignorance.

 

There are some things that you just don't appropriate for commercial gain or fashion. The insipid, shallow, social parasites like this Jenner/Kardashian spawn might not be expected to know this in their superficial nothing lives but Pepsi should have and does now.

Edited April 6, 2017 by Tawan Dok Krating Daeng

[jesimps]

4 hours ago, helpisgood said:

 

I think, if I understand you correctly, that you have missed the point.  If this was just about political correctness, you'd have my sympathy.  This is different.

 

It's about trivializing important public issues by suggesting that their product, a sugary soft drink, can resolve strong differences in public affairs.  I don't think that the ad tries to make fun of either the demonstrators or the police, per se.  That would be a p.c. issue. 

 

Instead, Pepsi has the unmitigated gall to try to conflate their soft drink with humans being able to resolve troubling public disputes and problems.  Yes, just agree that will all love a cold soft drink on a hot day and peace in the world will follow.  Now, associate that wonderful - albeit unrealistic - feeling with our product and keep choosing Pepsi. 

 

What's next?  Will Shias and Sunnis cast aside their ancient differences because they all love to have a cold, sweetened beverage under the hot Iraqi sun?

Cheeze, it's an advert for a bottle of pop for goodness sake. Some people are out to make trouble over the most trivial of things. I bet you and them are lefties. 

 

Lighten up for smegs sake and stop inventing problems. As for Pepsi, they should have gone with the advert and put two fingers up to the snowflakes.

 

[HerbalEd]

8 hours ago, steven100 said:

disagree ....  even as a guideline,  I still consider they continue to go overboard with PC' ness ....    it's ridiculous.

but, if you support this call then thats up to u.  The do-gooders have wrecked Australia anyway, so more rubbish like this will just add to the existing pile of garbage they continue to spew out. imo

Do-gooders spewing garbage? A bit hyperbolic, eh?

[steven100]

Just now, HerbalEd said:

Do-gooders spewing garbage? A bit hyperbolic, eh?

don't think so ....   do gooders just complain ... complain and complain ...  you can't say that , you can't do that ,  you can't lock a person up in those confinments ( even though he's a drug dealer or rapist )   ....

 

lol .... thats why Australia has lost it ...........................TO MANY DO GOODERS ...

[Jingthing]

An interesting perspective that argues (convincingly) that the "failed" ad is actually a huge success.

 

 

The world is certainly talking about it and their brand which wouldn't be happening with just another standard marketing ad.

Personally I don't care about "big sugar water" companies being successful or not, except in terms of the global obesity epidemic that they're complicit in. 

 

"Pepsi, far from pulling a gaffe, has achieved a wild success. The product might suffer in the short term, some helpless advertisement workers might lose their jobs, but the systems and ideologies that enable Pepsi to exist in the first place have been bolstered and buttressed by the “failure” of the advertisement. This is the state of our world, of capitalist realism: failure is success, success is failure, and Pepsi knows you better than you know yourself."

 

 

http://forward.com/culture/368310/why-that-catastrophic-pepsi-ad-was-actually-a-resounding-success/?attribution=home-top-story-3-headline&attribution=home-top-story-3-headline

Edited April 6, 2017 by Jingthing

[Minnie the Minx]

I had to Google who Kendall Jenner was lol. All these ridiculous airheads 'coming out' of whatever closet.

 

Give it a rest, nobody is interested. You don't see one legged black crack addicted prostitutes coming out of the closet all this 'we have rights' be sensitive stuff yeah sure, everybody else has rights too, as in not being exposed to this rubbish.

[Minnie the Minx]

A smart campaign though, as by pulling it it generated folks to backlash. Straight up peeps have rights too.

[helpisgood]

1 hour ago, jesimps said:

Cheeze, it's an advert for a bottle of pop for goodness sake. Some people are out to make trouble over the most trivial of things. I bet you and them are lefties. 

 

Lighten up for smegs sake and stop inventing problems. As for Pepsi, they should have gone with the advert and put two fingers up to the snowflakes.

 

Geez, you lighten up.  I was just coolly analyzing what Pepsi had done after reading how some were discussing it as a p.c. problem. 

 

How do you assume that I had "invented" problems by analyzing what Pepsi had done?  What problems?  Pepsi had to pull a stupid ad off the air, which got them a lot of publicity?  Will the UN Security Council have a meeting about this?  Understanding what they are doing is not "inventing" problems.  It is called understanding about the world one lives in.  That's not a problem.  Don't be a "snowflake." 

 

How do you assume that I am a "leftie" (cannot be critical of any corporation, God forbid?) or was that just some usual ad hominem nonsense to evade what I had discussed?  Do you work for Pepsi? 

 

Personally, I didn't get excited or offended about the ad, as you seem to assume.  I just think it is a ridiculous ad, and there's no reason not to point it out.  I was not planning on demonstrating on the streets about it.  

 

 

Edited April 6, 2017 by helpisgood
added verb

[canuckamuck]

I don't see where this ad showed anything definitive connecting to any group whatsoever. It seemed more like a parade then a protest. Everybody happy being little snowflakes.

Anyone who could find something in this ad to be offended about has had a lot of experience being offended . Only an expert victim could imagine this ad is about their particular oppressed faction.

 

This generation is going to learn some very hard lessons.

[nuakmuaynina]

given them loads of free publicity.

 

 

[Miaow]

I don't see where this ad showed anything definitive connecting to any group whatsoever. It seemed more like a parade then a protest. Everybody happy being little snowflakes.
Anyone who could find something in this ad to be offended about has had a lot of experience being offended . Only an expert victim could imagine this ad is about their particular oppressed faction.
 
This generation is going to learn some very hard lessons.

Sent from my iPad

[Mosha]

To paraphrase the other cola company's ad.

I'd like to teach the world to whinge.

In perfect harmony.

 

Sent from my iris 505 using Tapatalk

 

 

 

 

[just.a.thought]

Utterly boring ad,it totally failed in making me crave a beverage let alone a Pepsi without whiskey.......

[Jingthing]

A humorous take. 

Start at 5:22.

Attractive Lives Matter.

Yes we can ... (of pepsi).

Go LONG Pepsi.