Pepsi Commercial

LIVE BOLDER. LIVE LOUDER. LIVE FOR NOW. These are the texts displayed during the final seconds of the new, heavily controversial, Pepsi commercial, featuring model Kendal Jenner, protestors, a line of police officers, and of course, lots of Pepsi. But when the ad was released… backlash struck, or should I say, “backwash?” Pepsi is going to need much more than a model and refreshing soda, to stop the debate they started. As defined in Module 1, Visual rhetoric is, “the mobilization of signs for the articulation of identities, subjectivities, communities and nations” (Light). This commercial is a recent example, which demonstrates advertising as visual rhetoric in our media, social and political issues. In this analysis, I will assess Pepsi’s

The authors use ideas regarding simulacra and hyperreality from Jean Baudrillard to help explain that with technological advancements, growth in creativity and execution, we are currently living in a world of replication. A quote from Buadrillard supports this idea which explains, “as we entered into a postmodern era characterized by media and technologies of simulation, we lost sight of ‘the real’” (Sturken and Cartwright 307-308). Pepsi’s historical context can be understood through these ideas of post modernism as a replication of various images, however, one example includes even their biggest rival, Coca-Cola. “Pepsi is not the first multinational brand to attempt to use counterculture and protest movements to sell its product. In 1971, Coca-Cola's iconic ‘I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing,’ advertisement rode the wave of flower-power protest that had emerged in opposition to the Vietnam War”

On Tuesday April 4th, 2017, Pepsi released a commercial advertisement featuring one of the famous Jenner sisters and model, Kendall Jenner. In an article from the New York Times, "Pepsi Pulls Ad Accused of Trivializing Black Lives Matter," Daniel Victor provides a brief summary of Pepsi’s controversial ad, which “shows attractive young people holding milquetoast signs with nonspecific pleas like ‘Join the conversation,” and “the protesters are uniformly smiling, laughing, clapping, hugging and high-fiving.” The image above shows Kendal approaching an officer at an unnamed protest with a cold Pepsi in hand, she then hands him the featured product, he takes a sip, follows it with a grin, and the protestors go wild. The video then concludes with the texts “Live Bolder, Live Louder, Live for Now.” In a statement to CNN, Pepsi said, "This is a global ad that reflects people from different walks of life coming together in a spirit of harmony, and we think that's an import message to convey" (Gonzales). However, this is not the message that was received when the commercial was released, which had already had a shocking 280,000 views as of 11:30 p.m. ET, the same day (Gonzales). The advertisement sparked significant backlash, accusing the advertisement of “appropriating the Black Lives Matter movement and using social