Pepsi and American Culture

You guys don’t know this about me but I am a sports freak. Weird coming from a girl I know, but I grew up watching sports with my dad and ever since I have been infatuated by the sports world (my major before communications was sports management). So while many people love to watch the popular Geico, MasterCard or Heineken ads...I love watching sports ads and sometimes I spend hours on YouTube just browsing sports commercials. That’s how I came across with the new ad for Pepsi, which shows modern as well as old historic moments in baseball while the people being part of this moment are drinking Pepsi.

As I kept watching this commercial it came to my mind how we were discussing in class the images used in ads and what the companies promoting their products want them to represent. In this commercial which features important moments of baseball through generations Pepsi is trying to establish itself as an essential part of American culture. By combining what is often called ''America’s pastime'' with their logo, Pepsi is trying to establish them as an icon of American culture. The split screen aspect of the commercial helps the viewer grasp better the meaning of the ad because you can see the resemblance of the moments shown even though they happened in completely different generations. Noticeable aspects of this ad include the part where the player runs into the logo of Pepsi in the stadium while trying to catch a ball, the shots of Babe Ruth and Derek Jeter (both important figures of the sport as well as American culture, even though the belong to different generations), and lastly at the end of the commercial when it says ‘’Every generation refreshes the world’’. All of these parts of the ad appeal to the American culture and how Pepsi is involved with it (for those of you who don’t know many Pepsi slogan include the word generation i.e. the ‘’Generation Next’’ campaign held a few years ago). Lastly, I feel like this ‘’historic’’ approach to advertisement is a different one from the Pepsi traditional ad which features celebrities such as Britney Spears, the Spice Girls, etc…and I feel like Pepsi is doing this because since its major competition, Coca Cola, is one of the most recognizable icons of American culture, Pepsi needs to step it up in that aspect and try to appeal to the loyal consumer instead of the young consumer who does whatever his/hers favorite celebrity does.

Here's the link for the commercial so you can check it out:

http://www.youtube.com/pepsi#play/uploads/34/-fHoGRauXRE