By now I’m sure we’ve all seen Pepsi and their horrendous new ad. If you haven’t, here’s an in depth summary: People are outraged and marching in order to make a difference, Kendall Jenner doesn’t care because she’s taking pictures, then she does care, stops taking pictures, and shows everyone the that the secret to dealing with brutality from the police, for all these years, has been giving them an ice cold Pepsi to drink. Yes, that actually happened.
While Pepsi’s shameless attempt at a cash grab is bad - so very bad - it’s also important to take note of why it’s bad so that we can call out other advertisers when they do the same. Luckily I remember a situation that draws a lot of parallels to this Pepsi fiasco.
Boondocks had an episode in their first season that also tackled the notion of protesting and how advertising manipulates people emotionally. A little girl, Jazmine, opens up a lemonade stand on a particularly hot day in the summer so that she can save up enough money to get a pony, a noble dream for any little kid.
A ruthless businessman, Ed Wuncler, happens upon the stand and takes advantage of Jazmine’s desire for a pony by having her go into business with him. Wuncler says that if Jazmine makes enough money she can have one of the many horses from his stable.
After having Jazmine sign a contract, Wuncler, of course, tells her that she has to pay to make the stand look nicer, pay for mass advertising, and will have to work for long hours of the day if she is to someday afford the pony she so desperately craves. But after days of work, hundreds of customers and little sleep, Jazmine is not anywhere closer to her pony than she was when she began. In fact, Wuncler tells her she owes him more money than ever.
Eventually, her friend Huey gets fed up with her suffering and exploitation just so Wuncler can get richer and organizes a protest of the lemonade stand. That’s when Wuncler shows up to pitch his new “Oppression Free” lemonade. The protesters stop their protest and the customers of the old lemonade stand stop buying the old lemonade, so that all of them can feel good about themselves for drinking the new “Oppression Free” lemonade. Wuncler then berates Jazmine and leaves with her crying, upset, and still nowhere near a pony.
Pepsi pretty much takes the role of Ed Wuncler in real life with this new ad pushing their “Oppression Free” Pepsi. Pepsi doesn’t actually care about any real life movements or causes that mean a lot to people - things that people are working everyday to support. Instead, they just want you to buy their drink and pay them, regardless of what happens to the Jazmines of the world. They could care less what the results of any movements or protests are as long as you drink their product.
So in a thinly veiled attempt at manipulating people emotionally, they tried to link Pepsi to something people care a lot about.
Is Pepsi the only company that does this? Of course not.
So should we give them a pass on this? Of course not.
Instead, let’s learn from Pepsi and The Boondocks and call out advertisers who are trying to manipulate us emotionally with things we care about just to get our money. Do it for Jazmine and the pony she never got.
