Soda is Not the Answer

The Pepsi ad featuring reality TV star Kendall Jenner was not only tone deaf but a huge PR mess. Kendall Jenner is the epitome of white privilege. She is extremely wealthy and has had most things in life handed to her on a silver platter. After watching the ad last spring I was genuinely confused as to why Pepsi thought this ad was good to run. There are almost too many problems to count in this ad. A can of soda unfortunately doesn't have the power to change the world. Their choice to use a white privileged woman, let alone Kendall Jenner, showed just how blind Pepsi is to what is going on in the world, and honestly made me question if of any people of color were involved in the making of this ad. I’m pretty sure Kendall Jenner is the last person you would find marching for the Black Lives Matter movement. Many people posted about their frustration on twitter. Even Martin Luther King Jr.’s daughter posted a picture of her father fighting police at a rally.

This post really showed how times have not changed much, and even though there have been major movements and progress in the resistance movement, they do not come easily. Pepsi ended up pulling the ad after receiving massive amounts of backlash, and at the time there was no word from Kendall Jenner. SNL summed up how we were all feeling when they aired a parody of the ad.

When I see a major brand like Pepsi produce a high budget advertisement like this one I have a million questions, and i'm assuming so do many other people.