How Pepsi’s ad got off drawing board
Using in-house unit perhaps kept others from speaking up
Tone deaf. Clueless. Insensitive.
Those are just a few of the words used to describe the Pepsi ad, featuring model and reality star Kendall Jenner, that ignited a backlash so ferocious that the beverage giant announced it was pulling the spot a day after it was unveiled.
The ad debacle raises questions about how a commercial that pushed so many buttons, including charges that it trivialized the movement against police violence, ever got off the drawing board. It also highlights the advertising industry’s struggles to embrace, and tell stories around, diversity.
“How can it be that a group of people could be totally oblivious to the reaction that a commercial like this would generate?’’ says Lisa Skriloff, president of the consulting firm, Multicultural Marketing Resources. “I have been following commercials like this since the ’80’s, and this goes to the top of the list. ... There should have been someone who would have stopped it.’’
The ad, which started a torrent of mocking memes, tweets and late-night comic monologues, shows Jenner ripping off her blonde wig and wiping off her lipstick before joining a passing protest. After making her way to the front of the crowd, she gives a can of Pepsi to a police officer. He takes a sip, and the marchers break out in celebration.
Pepsi apologized, saying that it “clearly ... missed the mark’’ and “did not intend to make light of any serious issue.” But on Thursday, the company, the ad’s creative team, and Jenner did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
TMZ, citing sources, said Jenner wasn’t aware of the ad team’s vision, and by the time she saw the script, there was nothing that could be done to change it.
Late-night comic host Jimmy Kimmel was one of many to wonder what Pepsi was thinking.
“The fact that this somehow made it through, I can’t imagine how many meetings, and edits, and pitches, and then got the thumbs-up from who knows how many people is absolutely mindboggling,” he said Wednesday on his show, Jimmy Kimmel Live!
Pepsi said in an earlier statement that the ad was produced by its in-house content creation unit. That, some experts say, may have been part of the problem.
An outside agency may have provided not only dissenting opinions but the capability to test the ad concept with a wider network of consumers, says Matt Britton, CEO of Crowdtap, a marketing technology firm.
Companies are increasingly turning to their in-house ad departments because they can often turn around campaigns more quickly and at lower cost.
“All brands are under pressure to cut costs, and agencies are often in the cross hairs,” Britton said. But a company’s employees may be more reluctant to offer criticism, potentially leading to a controversial ad like Pepsi’s getting the green light. “There are so many stakeholders in large organizations,” Britton said. “It’s about consensus-building and making everybody happy.”
In many ways, the Pepsi ad illustrates some of the complex issues facing Madison Avenue, which must decidewhether to depict the fierce debates polarizing society or deal with the whiplash speed of criticism that can emerge on social media.
Pepsi has always aimed to be a socially conscious company, go- ing back to its “Next Generation” campaign in the 1960s, said Jon Bond, an ad industry veteran who has worked with Pepsi executives and is co-chairman of the Shipyard, a marketing firm. The company’s heart was in the right place, he said, but Jenner, as the symbol of a social movement, was the wrong choice.
“The intent was good,” Bond said. “The strategy was good. But execution, they messed up on. ... Everyone makes mistakes. It has a long history of doing good work.”
The Jenner ad didn’t mention BlackLivesMatter, but its imagery evoked that movement, and critics felt it trivialized the wave of protests that have risen in response to numerous police killings of black men and boys.
The ad also blundered by doing what critics say is still all too common on Madison Avenue, as well as in Hollywood — putting a white hero at the center of the action, while people of color are reduced to props in the background.
“The most disturbing part is her approaching the police through white privilege, in a way that all other folks might not have been able to,” said Shalini Shankar, professor of anthropology at Northwestern University, who added that “the intentional curation of the ad with people of so many ethnicities seemed forced.”