Why Pepsi’s Peaceful Pop Protest was a Flop
Pepsi’s April 2017 advertisement titled “Live for Now Anthem” which released during modern America’s “Golden Age” of Protest, sparked widespread controversy and criticism. In the short video, an unspecified protest takes place, built up of a diverse array of attractive men and women holding signs, on which are written words and phrases such as “peace” or “join the conversation”, but exactly which “conversation” these signs refer to is unclear. The star of the video is model and reality-television personality Kendall Jenner, the “first model since Cindi Crawford in 1992 to have her own global Pepsi advertising campaign”. When Kendall, who is modeling for a shoot nearby, grows intrigued by the movement, she“removes her blonde wig,” throwing it to her unhappy assistant, one of very few black women in the video, and “wipes the dark lipstick from her mouth”, entering the crowd of protesters. Due to her spur-of-the-moment entry to the movement, she likely has very little understanding of its aims, but nonetheless becomes the savior of the protest. The resolution comes when Kendall “picks up a can of liquid corporate America” and casually strolls toward the line of police officers opposite the crowd. She approaches an officer and hands him the soda, where he, as put by Olivia Solon in her article, “does not pepper spray or shoot unarmed Jenner. Instead, he… (accepts) the peace offering… The crowd goes wild, Jenner has clearly restored peace and justice to America. Finally, thanks to her and Pepsi, all is good in the world.” Although this is a happy ending to the short narrative, it is far from accurate both in its ease and its simplicity, causing immense disapproval and the removal of the advertisement less than a day after its release.
To many of those opposed to “Live for Now Anthem” find the nonchalant way it depicts protesting both offensive and inconsiderate. Activist DeRay McKesson told NBC News, “This ad trivializes the urgency of the issues and it diminishes the seriousness and the gravity of why we got into the street in the first place”. One of the ad’s noteworthy critics was the daughter of Martin Luther King Jr, Bernice King, who tweeted “If only Daddy would have known the power of #Pepsi”. Pepsi responded to this criticism with a statement explaining their intention “to project a global message of unity, peace and understanding”, accepting and apologizing for both the fact that they had “missed the mark” and for putting Kendall Jenner, the most prominent figure in the advertisement, in the controversial role.
Not only was the appropriation and commodification of the act of protest considered distasteful, but also the choice of placing Kendall as the star of the advertisement. As articulated by BBC Newsbeat article, “Kendall Jenner ‘feels Bad’ after Pepsi Black Lives Matter Advert Controversy”, “It was criticised for painting a “privileged, white” model as a peacemaker between civil rights activists and police.” People reacted to this with both rage and mockery. Public spaces, as they often do, turned to humor to address the controversiality of the advertisement were Saturday Night Live and The Late Show. In the latter, host Stephen Colbert critiques Pepsi’s message with a play off the popular “Black Lives Matter” which he, in regard to the ad, changed to “Attractive Lives Matter”. Colbert also criticised Kendall’s wig-tossing, when her unhappy black “wig caddy” catches Kendall’s blonde hairpiece as the model leaves the shoot to join “America’s hot extras” in the street”. But, as Colbert continues, “Luckily Ms Jenner, a wealthy young white woman knows exactly how to handle police at a protest”. Here, he sarcastically critiques the controversial choice of a privileged white protagonist for the advertisement which is reminiscent for so many of civil rights demonstrations.
Whereas The Late Show addressed in with sarcastic humor, SNL parodied the filming of the advertisement with focus on the director. In this short skit, the director leaves filming to take a call, during which repeatedly describes what advertisement is about, making it sound more and more absurd each time. He even tells them it is a celebration of black and asian culture, which follows with an awkward pause. When he finally asks for the phone to be passed to a black neighbor, he listens and repeats their words aloud for audiences to hear: “Don’t even touch it? It would be insane to touch it? Right, okay. Don’t even show police? What would you do if you were in my situation? Just run to my car?”. As the director begins to panic, the camera changes focus to show a mock Kendall Jenner talking to her older sister Khloe on the phone. ‘Kendall’ also tries to explain the project, but with a vastly different attitude: “I stop the police from shooting black people by giving them a Pepsi. I knowwww it’s cute, right?”. By calling the ad’s content “cute”, SNL mocks the lackadaisical attitude with which Pepsi addressed the serious issue of protest.
In reference to Jean-Luc Comolli and Paul Narboni’s article titled, “Cinema/Ideology/Criticism”, Pepsi’s “Live for Now Anthem” seems to fall into their fourth category of film, all of which is political in one way or another. Their fourth category includes “those films, increasingly numerous today, which have an explicitly political content… but which do not effectively criticize the ideological system in which they are embedded because they unquestioningly adopt its language and its imagery”. Pepsi’s advertisement does just this. Its overarching theme, protest, is explicitly and unavoidably political. However, the leading figure and insouciant treatment of the political topic reflect the dominating ideology that protests often oppose. Company or individual, one cannot testify for someone else or anything they have not experienced. Although Pepsi’s intention may have been relatively innocent, the reception of a message or product is equally if not more important. The publicity did, although negative for Pepsi, further raise dialogues and, concurrently, awareness surrounding cultural appropriation and commodification.
References
Comolli, Jean-Luc, and Paul Narboni. “Cinema/Ideology/Criticism.” Screen 12, no. 1 (1971): 27-38.
Elizabeth, De. “People Are NOT Happy About Pepsi’s New Commercial Starring Kendall Jenner.” Teen Vogue. May 25, 2017. https://www.teenvogue.com/story/pepsi-commercial-kendall-jenner-reaction.
“Girl Chat: Pepsi is Not Okay – Part 1”. YouTube. April 07, 2017. https://youtu.be/SYwvLomUaMM.
“Kendall Jenner ‘feels Bad’ after Pepsi Black Lives Matter Advert Controversy.” BBC News. October 02, 2017. http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/41465222/kendall-jenner-feels-bad-after-pepsi-black-lives-matter-advert-controversy.
PepsiCo. “Live for Now Moments Anthem.” Advertisement. Youtube. April 4, 2017. https://youtu.be/s_Ki4O3DpQQ
“Pepsi Commercial”. Saturday Night Live. YouTube. April 09, 2017. https://youtu.be/Pn8pwoNWseM.
Smith, Alexander. “‘We Missed the Mark’: Pepsi Pulls Ad Featuring Kendall Jenner after Controversy.” NBCNews.com. April 5, 2017. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/pepsi-ad-kendall-jenner-echoes-black-lives-matter-sparks-anger-n742811.
Solon, Olivia. “Kendall Jenner’s Pepsi Ad Criticized for Co-opting Protest Movements for Profit.” The Guardian. April 05, 2017. https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2017/apr/04/kendall-jenner-pepsi-ad-protest-black-lives-matter.
“Stephen Takes On Kendall Jenner’s ‘Attractive Lives Matter’ Pepsi Ad”. The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. YouTube. April 06, 2017. https://youtu.be/qDWlMi14quY.