Pepsi Apologizes on Twitter for "Suicide" Ad by BBDO

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PepsiCo has apologized via a Twitter message for an ad for Pepsi Max which features a “calorie” creature attempting to commit suicide. The ad, from BBDO Dusseldorf, features a blue, bean-shaped character simultaneously shooting himself in the head, with a noose round his neck, and poison in his other hand. The bean is supposed to be “one very very very lonely calorie.” BNET readers were informed about the bizarre ad a couple of days ago.

Twitter user Christine Lu wrote a long series of angry tweets about how her own family had been impacted by suicide, according to ZDNet. Sample post:

pepsi: you want to push the envelope? try something that doesn’t remind me of my sister killing herself a month after her own wedding. 12:43 AM yesterday from TweetDeck

Huw Gilbert, Senior Manager for Communications at Pepsico, posted these replies:

@christinelu Huw from Pepsi here. We agree this creative is totally inappropriate; we apologize and please know it won’t run again. #pepsi

@christinelu @huwgilbert posted our response. My best friend committed suicide - this is a topic very close to my heart. My deepest apologies.

Christine replied, but noted that BBDO was nowhere to be seen on the issue:

Thank you to @boughb and @huwgilbert for having the guts to get on Twitter on behalf of Pepsi and give us an update on the suicide ad

No thanks to @bbdo who has zero comment on why they thought suicide by slashing wrists, hanging and bullet through head was good for #pepsi

~~(Note to BBDO CEO Andrew Robertson: Having your client appear to be faster than you at social media doesn’t look good.)~~ UPDATE: A source tells me Pepsi asked to handle this situation because it approved the ad in the first place, so BBDO is taking a back seat to its client.

Pepsi’s Gilbert also said the suicide illustrations were used only one time in one publication before being pulled.

The episode is reminiscent of Johnson & Johnson’s apology and retraction of its Motrin Moms ad, which suggested that trendy baby slings could hurt your back and neck. Twittering moms went berserk over the ad and the company eventually pulled it and recanted.

(BNET’s take: In hindsight, was the Motrin Moms ad really all that offensive? Nope. Corporate Twitter apologies are a fad because most advertisers are afraid of a technology they don’t yet fully understand. The really interesting bit will be when a company gets on Twitter and defends its ads in the face of criticism.)

Tags: Advertisement, PepsiCo, Suicide, Twitter, Jim Edwards

Jim Edwards, a former managing editor of Adweek, has covered drug marketing at Brandweek for four years, and is a former Knight-Bagehot fellow at Columbia University's business and journalism schools. Follow him on Twitter or send him an email.

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1

christinelu

12/05/08 | Report as spam

RE: Pepsi Apologizes on Twitter for

Christine Lu here. Thanks for raising awareness via this post.

Just want to share a bit of insight as to why I felt the need to flood my own Twitter time line calling Pepsi and BBDO out on this.

I didn't care for the apology. That's standard corporate practice. I really want to know how images depicting suicide by hanging, slashing of wrists and a bullet through the head complete with blood and brain matter fits into a global brand where suicide is the 3rd leading cause of death among a big % of their target demographic. 15-24yr olds.

I would love to have been a fly on the wall of that meeting where some idiot from Pepsi and some idiot from BBDO decided that it was a good idea.

Yes, I am aware it was only run in Germany and in one publication. So...and...what? There aren't suicides in Germany? Not to mention in this day and age, there are no such things as boundaries anymore. Pepsi, social media, internet word of mouth and suicide are global in reach.

This isn't a Motrin Mom moment of overreaction. It's the reaction of someone who lost a sister who gave up a 2 year battle with depression and killed herself a month after her wedding by running a plastic tube from tailpipe to window in a closed garage where her husband found her 5 hours later with a note on the dashboard apologizing for not being able to take it anymore. It's the reaction of someone who's spent 4 years trying to understand why if someone commits suicide every 18 minutes in the US, you don't hear much about it. It's because no one talks about it in public. So no one knows.

If I could share the number of Twitter DMs and Facebook emails that came through to me from people thanking me for speaking up because they too lost a loved one to suicide, it'd make more sense why I felt it necessary to just spend 24 hours of my life raising awareness of why it's unacceptable.

In the end, Pepsi gets praised for apologizing to the social media crowd and it'll probably end up as a check box next to the "win" column of some PR case study. In reality, it still doesn't change the fact that there are a lot of people who are still in the dark as to why a soda company thought suicide by violent means might be a good idea for their brand.

I don't get it.
Christine Lu
2

ParentingMaven

12/05/08 | Report as spam

RE: Pepsi Apologizes on Twitter for

Thank you so much for putting this story out there and thank you Christine Lu for standing up for common decency.

I am horrified by the lack of compassion and contempt in advertising that seems to be trendy these days.

ParentingMaven
http://www.parentinghelpme.com