COMMUNICATION
SUHANA GORDHAN: The revolution will not be trivialised, as Pepsi has discovered
‘Pepsi’s ad is the kind of idea creative directors should bomb and clients should never see, in case they’re stupid enough to buy it’
Last week, South Africans took to the streets in their thousands to call for the firing of President Jacob Zuma. Zuma is still in power though, because what all marchers were clearly missing was an ice-cold Pepsi. According to brand Pepsi, the revolution will be led by Kendall Jenner; it will look like a street party where protesters are buoyant and joyful, and the police will be calm, thirsty and in desperate need of a soft drink to temper their brutal dispositions. As Pepsi’s latest commercial went horribly south last week, we have to ask the question: how on earth did that ad leave the building in the first place? Let’s talk about the creative process. Making and selling a commercial is a long and winding process. It’s like surviving a game of Super Mario Bros, where your idea is the princess in the tower and you must brave many levels of deep waters, lava pits and strange creatures to free her. In other words, it’s not easy to get an idea out of your mind, onto paper, through cr...
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