One Lonely Calorie - Pepsi Max Advertisement Series

rockbirthedme · I can't help reacting pretty strongly to this one.  I've been suicidal, as have many people I know, and it's not remotely funny.  I wonder if Pepsi's stupid enough to actually run this?  They'll be crucified if they do.

mct · It sounds like they may have run this in Germany only? Such a strange decision.

dan · From what i've heard, they did a public apology for it. Here

dan · Also, if you remove suicide from this, I actually like the artwork.  I dig the little calorie guy and the colors.

bubble dumpster · I like these quite a bit, and I wish more advertising would go further in this direction.

jessica · they make me very uneasy.
i think if the images were more like the idea of the calorie strapped to the rocket they would come off more like while e. coyote and much less unnerving. but as they are, they just leave me feeling gross. the apology was interesting. it seems odd that someone who has dealt closely with suicide would run these ads without realizing they may be problematic.

rockbirthedme · I was moderately appalled by the commenter who basically said the ad was for 19-year-olds and the 40-year-olds should get their heads out of it.  Does that twink seriously think that 1) Pepsi's demographic is only 18-25, and 2) that the opinions and feelings of people who are not young adults don't count?  Guess what, kid -- Pepsi was around before you were born, and as 40-somethings, we have as many or more dollars as a 19-year-old, and Pepsi knows it.

At least someone from Pepsi, whether cynically or not, was smart enough to know to back away from this one quickly.

rockbirthedme · Oh, the artwork is smashing.  It's a real shame that some talented artists got directed to waste their time on this.