Kendall Jenner Pepsi Ad TAKEN DOWN After Public Backlash|Pepsi Ad Removed From YouTube And Ads

Kendall Jenner Pepsi Ad TAKEN DOWN After Public Backlash|Pepsi Ad Removed From YouTube And Ads

Pepsi Pulls Ad Accused of Trivializing Black Lives Matter. Pepsi has apologized for a controversial advertisement that borrowed imagery from the Black Lives Matter movement, after a day of intense criticism from people who said it trivialized the widespread protests against the killings of black people by the police.

“Pepsi was trying to project a global message of unity, peace and understanding. Clearly, we missed the mark and apologize,” the company said in a statement on Wednesday. “We did not intend to make light of any serious issue. We are pulling the content and halting any further rollout.”

The ad, posted to YouTube on Tuesday, shows attractive young people holding milquetoast signs with nonspecific pleas like “Join the conversation.” The protesters are uniformly smiling, laughing, clapping, hugging and high-fiving.

In the ad’s climactic scene, a police officer accepts a can of Pepsi from Kendall Jenner, a white woman, setting off raucous approval from the protesters and an appreciative grin from the officer.

It was, current activists say, precisely the opposite of their real-world experience of protesting police brutality.

In torrid criticism after the ad was posted, commentators on social media accused Pepsi of appropriating imagery from serious protests to sell its product, while minimizing the danger protesters encounter and the frustration they feel.

Elle Hearns, the executive director of the Marsha P. Johnson Institute and formerly an organizer for Black Lives Matter, said the ad “plays down the sacrifices people have historically taken in utilizing protests.” “No one is finding joy from Pepsi at a protest,” she said. “That’s just not the reality of our lives. That’s not what it looks like to take bold action.”

In a statement on Tuesday, Pepsi at first said the ad, which was produced by an in-house studio, “captures the spirit and actions of those people that jump in to every moment.”

To many who saw the ad, it was a tone-deaf note. Bernice King, the daughter of Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King, was among those who drew the connection to past protests. The image of Ms. Jenner approaching a line of police officers was compared to a widely shared photo of Ieshia Evans, a black woman who stood firm while being charged by riot police during a protest against police brutality in Baton Rouge, La., in July. Pepsi Pulls Controversial Kendall Jenner Ad After Outcry. IN CASE YOU’VE just awakened from a brief coma, Pepsi is taking a lot of heat for its latest ad. The broad strokes: Its official title is the word salad “Live for Now Moments Anthem”; it features reality star/model Kendall Jenner (if your coma was not-so-brief, that’s a whole other thing, which we don’t have time to get into right now); its gist is that we should all unite and “join the conversation.” In that way, the soft drink ad succeeded. It did indeed provoke conversation—about Pepsi’s tone-deafness.

In the 2-minute-39-second “short film,” Jenner throws off the chains of the modeling industry by taking off her wig, then leaving a photoshoot to join a protest. After sharing some knowing nods and #woke-ass fist bumps with her fellow protestors, the Keeping Up with the Kardashians star manages to bring everyone together by … handing a cop a Pepsi. The message is clear: All those Women’s Marches, Black Lives Matter protests, and demonstrations outside Trump Tower would be much more effervescent—and effective!—if someone had just brought some soda. The internet, as you might suspect, disagreed. Within 48 hours the video got nearly 1.6 million views on YouTube (five times as many downvotes as upvotes), and Twitter and Facebook lit up with people pointing out just how gauche the whole thing was. Activist DeRay Mckesson called it. Kendall Jenner. Jenner. Kendall Jenner Pepsi Ad. Pepsi Ad. Pepsi Ad Jenner. Pepsi Ad Kendall Jenner. Kendall Jenner Pepsi Advertisement. Kendall Jenner Pepsi Ad. Pepsi Ad Kendall Jenner BLM. BLM Pepsi Ad.

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