Theories of Advertisement | PepsiCo Study

Running head: ADVERTISEMENT
Advertisements
Name of the student
Name of the university
Author Note:

ADVERTISEMENT1
Introduction:
Advertisements are one the most important components of the integrated marketing
communication strategies which business organisations adopt to attract customers to purchase
their products. Camilleri (2018) in his article titled, ‘Integrated marketing communications.
In Travel marketing, tourism economics and the airline product’ define advertisement as a ‘a
mass-marketing communication tool that is designed to inform and persuade a large
number of people.’ Tuchman, Nair and Gardete (2018) strengthen the discussion by mentioning
that companies advertising the products have control on the content of their advertisements of
their respective products. Kirti et al. (2017) mention that companies today in order to gain to an
immense consumer base, incorporate both traditional advertisement platforms like newspapers
and television and digital platforms like social media platforms. Thus, it is evident that these
companies spend immense advertisement expenditure to advertise their respective products in
the market to generate immense revenue. Today companies align their advertisements with their
respective business strategies. Thus, in other words, review of advertisements enable revealing
several salient facts about the business strategies of the respective companies. Advertisements
enable companies to strengthen their market position by attract large numbers of new customers
(Tuchman, Nair & Gardete, 2018). Trendel, Mazodier & Vohs (2018) mention that faulty and
misleading advertisements on the other hand cause severe damage to the business of the
concerned companies to the extent of attracting legal actions against them, thus escalating
operational costs. Even the global companies are not immune to the damage caused by faulty
advertisements. The aim of the paper would be review of a recent advertisement of one such
global company available on two different media. The advertisement which would be analysed
would be, ‘Full Pepsi Commercial Starring Kendal Jenner’ which was launched on Youtube on

ADVERTISEMENT2
April 6, 2017 by PepsiCo Inc, the owner of the brand Pepsi (YouTube.com, 2017). The second
medium which the researcher would take into account to conduct the research is newspapers
which is a traditional medium of advertisement. The analysis would heavily draw strength from
the different aspects of the theory of advertisement.
Analysis:
The company owning the advertisement under study featuring Kendall Jenner is PepsiCo
Inc., the second largest marketer of beverage in the world. The company is based in the United
States of America and operates in the global market under the leadership of Mr. Ramon
Laguarta, the present chairman and chief executive officer. The company financially extremely
strong and earns a high revenue. The annual report published by the company for the period
2018 reveals that it generated a net profit of $mn 64,661 compared to $mn 63,525 in 2017 and
$mn 62,799 in 2016 (Appendix 1) (Pepsico.com, 2020). This means that the company enjoys a
strong presence in the global beverage market. PepsiCo Inc. is listed on NASDAQ, one of the
world’s largest in the world. The historical trend of stock prices on the NASDAQ clearly shows
that the company enjoys a strong position in the stock market which has in fact surged towards
2020 (Appendix 2) (Nasdaq.com, 2020). The company owns some of the iconic brands in the
food and beverage industry in the world. For example, the aerated soft drink brand owned by
PepsiCo namely, Pepsi holds a brand value of whopping $bn 18.8 as per the Forbes as on May
22, 2019 (Forbes,com, 2019). PepsiCo operates in the more than a hundred countries in the
world including its home country namely, the US and consequently have to comply with the laws
in power in both its country of domicile as well as host countries like Australia. For example, the
company while marketing and advertising products in Australia has to comply with norms set by
Australian Competition & Consumer Commission (ACCC.gov.au, 2020). Thus, it transpires

ADVERTISEMENT3
from the above discussion that PepsiCo while advertising products in the market has to comply
with the expectations of external stakeholders like customers to generate revenue, investors to
generate capital and government bodies by complying with the consumer laws. Thus, in other
words faulty advertisements can breach the interests of one or several groups of stakeholders,
thus inflicting damage to the financial and market position of the company (Lund, 2016).
The chosen advertisement of PepsiCo which would be analysed is the commercial which
the company launched on April 6, 2017 featuring Kendall Jenner to promote its signature brand,
Pepsi. The advertisement opens with Jenner shooting in a certain location when she is distracted
by a mob of protestors. She picks up a can of Pepsi and walks towards one of policemen about to
confront the advancing mob. The policemen and participants in the mob rejoice after the
incident. The advertisement ends with the catch lines ‘Live Bolder’ and ‘Live For Now’. As far
as the reviews the advertisement received online as concerned, they are mixed. Some of the
viewers described the advertisement as innovative, some found the advertisement annoying with
others viewed it as a failure on the part of the company to outshine its biggest competitor, Coca
Cola (YouTube.com, 2017). One can point out from the review available on the digital media
platform that the advertisement as not received well. The NBCNews mentions that the critics
reviewed the advertisement negatively. They opined that the company has attempted to belittle
the torture which the police meted out to the African Americans. A spokesperson of company
however tried to establish Pepsi in a lighter ground by stating, "Pepsi was trying to project a
global message of unity, peace and understanding. Clearly we missed the mark, and we
apologize," but failed (Smith, 2017). The British newspaper, The Telegraph, in one of its 2017
article published around the same time opined that Pepsi was trying the exploit the exploitation
faced by the African Americans to promote its products and described a advertisement as a