Tone Deaf Pepsi ad

[Boges]

Is this sufficiently tone deaf for some of you? 

http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2017/04/05/nivea-apologizes-for-white-is-purity-ad.html

Quote

 

Nivea pulled a “White Is Purity” deodorant ad after critics blasted the German skin care company for promoting white supremacy, according to reports on Wednesday.

The ad appeared on Facebook last week and was aimed at the company’s customers in the Middle East.

The spot pitching Nivea’s “Invisible for Black and White” showed a woman with her back to the camera and her dark hair flowing over a white robe.

At the bottom of the ad, in all caps, the slogan said: “WHITE IS PURITY.”

 

 

[Guest]

Coming late to this so apologies if I'm repeating other posts.  I just saw that Pepsi ad and the problem with it is not one of political correctness, or cultural appropration, so much as it is just completely and utterly crap.

I could have come up with a better ad than that while undegoing a root canal.

Edited April 6, 2017 by bcsapper

[August1991]

On 4/6/2017 at 4:10 PM, bcsapper said:

I could have come up with a better ad than that while undegoing a root canal.

"....better ad...  ?

bcsapper, everyone - including you - is talking/linking to this Pepsi ad.

  

[Guest]

Just now, August1991 said:

"....better ad...  ?

bcsapper, everyone - including you - is talking/linking to this Pepsi ad.

  

Yeah, but I'm never gonna buy a Pepsi. Root canal, I tell you!

[August1991]

3 minutes ago, bcsapper said:

Yeah, but I'm never gonna buy a Pepsi. Root canal, I tell you!

bcsapper, there are 7 billion people in the world - every day, new people arrive.

Yesterday alone, by my reckoning, about 2000 of them had their 13th birthday. But 10 or 13, we all first discover the Pepsi trademark.

[Guest]

29 minutes ago, August1991 said:

bcsapper, there are 7 billion people in the world - every day, new people arrive.

Yesterday alone, by my reckoning, about 2000 of them had their 13th birthday. But 10 or 13, we all first discover the Pepsi trademark.

Just imagine how many of them would be drinking Pepsi if they let me make their commercials!

[kimmy]

Lots of press... but does it make people want to buy a Pepsi?

I have not seen the actual ad. I'm sure I could still track it down somewhere.

I am wondering whether it was actually stated anywhere that it depicted a BLM protest, or whether it was Generic But Current Political Activism that everybody has assumed represents BLM as opposed to some other cause.  When I lived in Ottawa, one evening I saw a large group of university students marching on Parliament Hill. They were carrying completely generic signs. "Stop this now!" and so on. They were chanting generic slogans. "Hell no! We won't go!"   It was just a gag... they weren't actually protesting anything, it was just a bunch of drunk college kids out for a lark. Did Kendall Jenner accidentally wind up in the same protest?

I'm also curious as to why they picked Kendall Jenner to star in their ad. Not because she's white, but because I don't think she has any actual street cred with people who actually care about protests. I think the Kardashians are viewed as being superficial and fake by large numbers of people, especially the kind of people who get involved in social activism.  At least Kendall Jenner has a career independent of being on "reality TV", so I guess that's a step ahead of her sisters at least, but still... she's a model.  Nobody cares what models think, unless that model is Derek Zoolander.

I think mostly this just reeks of cynicism.  I think young people are basically inured to this sort of thing. It's been done before, it's naked and obvious what's going on here. A parody of this ad would probably win Pepsi more enthusiasm from millennials than the ad itself.

 -k

[betsy]

On 4/6/2017 at 4:10 PM, bcsapper said:

Coming late to this so apologies if I'm repeating other posts.  I just saw that Pepsi ad and the problem with it is not one of political correctness, or cultural appropration, so much as it is just completely and utterly crap.

I could have come up with a better ad than that while undegoing a root canal.

 

Well I agree with you.  I didn't see anything offensive in it.........but it's just an awful ad. 

[kimmy]

Saturday Night Live weighs in:

https://streamable.com/1w7rs

 -k

[August1991]

On 4/8/2017 at 1:29 PM, kimmy said:

Lots of press... but does it make people want to buy a Pepsi?

....

Kimmy, it is not about, uh, making people want to drink Pepsi.

It is about creating a signal. The Pepsi logo, like Justin Trudeau's tattoo or driving a Mercedes-Benz, is a signal.

=======

And the best signal is a number.

 

Edited April 10, 2017 by August1991