User:Ajp624/Live for Now

PepsiCo Company

The formula for Pepsi Cola was originally created in the late-1800s by Caleb Brandham in North Carolina, USA. According to the organization's website, "PepsiCo is one of the world's leading food and beverage companies with over $63 billion in net revenue in 2017 and a global portfolio of diverse and beloved brands. It was established in 1965 with the merger of the Pepsi-Cola company and Frito-Lay Inc." PepsiCo currently owns several brands that distribute food and beverage products in over 200 countries around the world. The company generates billions of dollars in annual sales.

Plot:

The protesters are smiling and appear to be happy, also carrying signs that say "peace" and "love".

Production:

The “Live for Now – Moments” commercial in April 2017 was a play off an existing “Live for Now” campaign the company created in 2012. According to a statement from PepsiCo, the ad’s purpose was initially to reach millennials and “to project a global message of unity, peace, and understanding." "The creative, which will be seen globally across TV and digital, was produced by PepsiCo’s in-house content creation arm, Creators League Studio".

The disaster of this ad's feedback has turned it into an infamous cautionary tale for other businesses. Due to the fact that Pepsi’s in-house creative team came up with the concept, many people feel that this incident is a prime example of the risks associated with group-think, claiming that the company culture overlooked potential tone-deafness.

Reaction:

The response to the ad's release has been described as "instant condemnation" of the PepsiCo brand.

Furthermore, Kendall Jenner does not have a reputation of being a social activist. Entertainment Weekly called the ad “a tone-deaf attempt to co-opt a movement of political resistance”. Many current activists spoke out on Twitter in response to the advertisement, collectively expressing that it depicts a situation that is opposite of their real-world experiences with protesting police brutality. Specifically, users said that the ad minimized the seriousness of danger and frustration felt during police-brutality protests.

Jenner's Response

According to her family, Kendall Jenner was heavily impacted by the backlash following her appearance in the advertisement. Her older sister, Kim Kardashian, released a statement saying,

“I see her at home crying, but in the media she looks another way because she’s not addressing it. The team and everyone’s telling her not to, and I’m just like, ‘This is wrong. You need to speak up.’ She was like, ‘I don’t ever want to show that footage of me crying.’ She was trying to not make excuses or be dramatic, but that was what she was going through at the time.”

Jenner did not make a public statement publicly addressing the situation.

Public backlash put Jenner at the forefront of this controversy, as Twitter users claimed that she was a talentless and privileged individual. Users additionally stated that she had no experience with racial discrimination or police brutality, making her the wrong choice for the campaign.

Over eight months after the ad's release, Kendall Jenner spoke about the incident on the reality television show, Keeping Up With The Kardashians. She stated that while she initially did not see the issue with the "Live for Now" campaign, following the public's reaction, she was able to see it from a different perspective. Jenner claimed that she never intended to hurt anyone through her involvement and expressed her sorrow for doing so.

Though Pepsi sales hit an all-time low in the years following the ad's release, Jenner's career was not as heavily impacted. Apart from being a reality television star, she remains one of the world's highest-paid models in 2022 and currently has over 260 million Instagram followers.