2011 Super Bowl Pepsi Max Commercial

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Table of Contents

What goes on in the Ad?
What is the purpose?
How does it persuade?
What does it naturalize?
What does it ignore?
Rewriting
Works Cited

When the television was invented no one knew how it was going to change the way people live. No one considered how it can radically alter the way information is shared by many people all over the world. But it has to be pointed that the television was not an overnight success.

It took years of creating meaningful and exciting shows before the world began to tune in. However, someone has to pay the bill and just like newspapers and magazines the logical way to finance soap operas and news broadcast is through advertising.

Television advertising grew in leaps and bounds because tad agencies together with their creative talent mastered the art and science of communication and learned how to utilize concepts like ideology, myth-making, representation and language.

The proponent of this study will take a closer look at a recent Pepsi commercial made popular by the fact that it was shown in the 2011 Super Bowl – an event watched by millions of people in America. The ad was sponsored by Pepsi and the product advertised was Pepsi Max.

What goes on in the Ad?

It is normal for husband and wife disagree on an issue. If the disagreement is not resolved then conflict will ensue. In the Pepsi Max ad, the wife does not want her husband to indulge in great tasting but high-calorie content food. The food items that the husband loved to eat includes French fries, pie and burger.

Every time the husband attempts to eat these food items he gets a beating from his wife. In the first scene the mere fact that he was thinking of ordering French fries made him cringe from a quick kick from underneath the table. His wife was on the other side of the table.

In the second scene the husband was about to indulge in a pie and his wife came from behind to give his head a quick push into the center of the pie.

And in the third scene the husband hid in the bathtub to eat a burger but his wife was there to grab the burger and replaced it with a bar of soap. But in the final scene he chose to drink a Pepsi Max and this was met with approval. However, his roving eye was not part of the appreciation package and so his wife threw a Pepsi Max at him.

What is the purpose?

The Pepsi ad wanted to show the struggle of husband and wife who are attempting to maintain a healthy lifestyle. This was broken down into different sets of “myths” such as the idea that husbands cannot control themselves. This is not true for all husbands but the ad forced this concept into the audience and has to be accepted as truth.

The second myth is the idea that wives are always in control. This is not true because there are thousands of overweight women in America and most of them became obese because of the lack of self-control.

The purpose of the ad is not to persuade every type of viewer. The focus of the ad is on husbands and men in general. This message was designed for men and created an experience of shared emotions and struggles.

The message that it tries to convey is that Pepsi Max sympathizes with struggling husbands and men who had to keep up with a partner that forces them to watch what they eat. When this objective was achieved the alternative was given – Pepsi Max. The drink has zero calories but does not compromise on taste.

How does it persuade?

The ad created the perception that husbands and men in relationship need not to suffer all the time when it comes to watching their weight and being mindful of what they eat. There is a way to indulge without getting fat.

This can be achieved by drinking Pepsi Max. Everything that they love is forbidden but there is one thing that cannot be taken away from them and it is their beverage of choice enhanced by Pepsi Max.

The ad offers an alternative. A path to happiness that men are more than willing to take. The ad succeeded in creating desperation within their target market. Forcing them to acknowledge the “truth” that there is no way out.

It is like having a man drowning in the ocean and the moment that someone throws a lifesaver at him, he will automatically grab it thinking that there is no other way (Hall, p.30). This seems to be the effect of the commercial. Everything that was once considered great tasting and wonderful is off-limits. But Pepsi Max is still legal.

What does it naturalize?

The ad naturalizes the myth that man does not have self-control by showing that things that he loves to eat. The message is that man will do everything based on instinct without thinking about the consequences. He needed help from someone who knows self-control.

The naturalization process involves food items that men can easily relate (Fiske, p.21). French fries is everyone’s favorite. A pie is something that is instantly recognizable on screen. A burger is also another favorite food among American men.

The myth concerning the disciplined wife is naturalized by depicting a loving partner. The wife may be mean when it comes to her strategy of forcing a husband to adhere to a strict diet but everything was done with a smile on her face. She is not angry or controlling she is merely demonstrating her love for her husband.

What does it ignore?

The ad ignores the fact that there is no need to drink Pepsi Max. If the husband is indeed trying to lose weight then there are healthier alternatives. There is no need find an alternative to soft drinks that contain an inordinate amount of sugar.

But the ad totally ignores that fact, and proceeds to persuade the target audience that happiness in a relationship can be achieved if husband and wife finds common ground. When it comes to monitoring calorie intake one of the suggested strategies was to drink Pepsi Max.

Rewriting

Instead of using a husband and wife team the new ad will cast a family. Instead of using people that have an athletic build it would be better to use slightly overweight couples and slightly obese children in the re-imagined ad. This goes to show the real struggle. This helps explains why there is a need to lower the calorie intake of the family.

In the original Pepsi Max ad, the producers used characters that obviously has no weight problem. This creates confusion in the minds of the audinece as to the real purpose of drinking a zero calorie drink. As a result the actions of the wife was interpreted as being mean.

Those who are overweight will come to realize that the husband is not undisciplined but to the contrary his ideal weight is a product of exercise and self-control. It is possible that the audience will turn against the wife because they would want the husband to be rewarded for what he has done. Thus, there is nothing wrong in eating great tasting food once in a while.

In the final scene a jogger took a break from a vigorous run and sat on a bench next to where the husband and wife was seen drinking Pepsi Max.

The husband’s self-control issue resurfaced and he was caught looking appreciatively at the gorgeous girl. This provoked the wife to throw a can of Pepsi Max at her husband but he was able to duck on time and so the poor girl was hit on the head and she knocked down.

It would be better if the jogger was not alone but a part of the group that tried so hard to lose weight. The camera should focus on a group of joggers panting and sweating because of their need to lose weight. So when the Pepsi Max was thrown at the woman the product did not become an object of scorn but a message in itself.

In the original ad the audience is left with a bitter aftertaste after seeing the innocent girl sprawled on the floor (Snyder, p.1). But if this was re-written the audience will get the idea that exercising is not necessary as long as they learn to drink Pepsi Max.

Works Cited

Fiske, John. Television Culture. New York: Taylor & Francis Group, 2010.

Hall, Stuart. Representation. CA: Sage Publications, 1997.

Snyder, Steven. “Pepsi Max, Love Hurts.” Time. Feb. 2011. 12 May 2011.<http://content.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2046668_2046614_2046591,00.html>.

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