Comment by Michael B. Moore on February 20, 2011 at 12:29pm

Advertising frequently seeks to exploit stereotypes.  Within these ideas often lies humor and the ability to accentuate a creative point.  Also, obviously, lurking within is a minefield of sensitivity with the chance to offend and anger.  This Pepsi Max ad certainly dances somewhat brutishly on the line between these two areas.

 

At the core of the spot is the stereotype of the controlling, overbearing wife, and conversely of the poor victim husband! </roll eyes>  Race plays a troubling role in the spot and its use raises perplexing questions about how/why Pepsi chose to exploit it. 

 

First, of course, something as major as race is never a random detail in American advertising - particularly in a television spot aimed for the Super Bowl.  It wasn't a random decision that an African American couple was cast here.  It also was not an accident that the ultimate victim in the spot was a white woman.  I guess . . . the use of race was used here as a catalyst to exaggerate the extreme nature of the wife, to accentuate the point about their product, and to heighten the over-all humor.  Ultimately, race was designed to make the wife seem angrier with the objective of illustrating how healthy Pepsi Max must be to have won her approval. 

 

I guess that's where the humor and the "big creative idea" of the ad is supposed to be.  I get it, of course, but its a bit embarrassing and lazy in my view.  In the same way that I thought it disappointing that Old Spice continues to celebrate the "Angry Black Man" stereotype, Pepsi pulls out the "Angry Black Woman" one.  One could argue that the Pepsi ad is even worse because of how extraordinarily over-the-top the Old Spice spots are.  You know they are fantastical and they are living squarely in the realm of metaphor.  This Pepsi ad, on the other hand, purports to illustrate a day-in-the-life kind of feel which has the potential of delivering a much more hurtful blow. 

 

To apply just a bit of logic to this, the ad does a great job setting the wife up as the impulsive, even criminal, wife - but if she is to be so credible as the villain, are we really to believe that her neurosis stops just short of her diet soft drink sensibilities?  Should Pepsi Max really present itself as the choice of mentally unstable, violence prone people everywhere?   Perhaps that's taking it too seriously, but if the agency creatives control absolutely every micro-detail of content and meaning in the ad, why be lazy with this?  No doubt the Quixotic quest for the laugh, which I frequently lament, is the culprit once again.

 

At the end of the day, the use of the "Angry Black Woman" stereotype, just for a laugh,  beyond being socially tone deaf, just seems creatively weak. (Will Pepsi do anything for a laugh?)  It makes one wonder exactly where the line which they wouldn't want to cross lies?  Last time I checked, African Americans represented a rather significant part of Pepsi's business.  Why chance pissing them off over this?

 

From a strategic standpoint, the spot delivers the message of Pepsi Max's health - I guess.  We are led to presume that the stalking, neurotic wife is, somehow, thoughtful and reasoned in her soft drink choices.  That said, the spot delivers its message with such a caustic undertone that it ultimately diminishes its over-all value.  To use a white female runner as the victim of the assault from the "crazy" black wife seems to me to be an unnecessarily flagrant "creative" application of our uniquely American racial conundrum.  It alludes to all manner of racial and sexual stereotypes that probably don't belong in a Super Bowl ad.  I get that the Super Bowl is the time to haul out all manner of outrageous ideas to shock and grab one's attention, but this seems excessive.  As a marketer, an African American, and one who believes in our patchwork American social experiment, its hard for me to condone this ad.

 

Just for a laugh.

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