Earlier this year Pepsi released an advertisement on YouTube that received extremely negative reactions.
Through this advertisement Pepsi was alleged to have “trivialised”(New York Times, 2017) the Black Lives Matter movement and was accused of attempting to take advantage of the political climate in the U.S.A. This in turn garnered a large amount of adverse reactions on different social media platforms.
If only Daddy would have known about the power of #Pepsi. pic.twitter.com/FA6JPrY72V
— Be A King (@BerniceKing) April 5, 2017
— David Weiner (@daweiner) April 4, 2017
Due to this dissenting feedback they pulled the advertisement from all its platforms and apologised for the uproar it had caused. As a result, Pepsi released a statement claiming that, “Pepsi was trying to project a global message of unity, peace and understanding.” However some people are of the belief that Pepsi intentionally rolled out an ad campaign that would cause controversy in order to increase revenue. Eric Schiffer, the chairman of Reputation Management Consultants claims that, “[Pepsi] played it the way they intended to,”(LA Times, 2017) because he claims that the overall effect of the ad was positive since the whole world was talking about it.
However the issue of whether this whole episode is unethical is still murky. PepsiCo as a public company has a responsibility to maximize its profits and thus is it unethical for them to release an advertisement that they know will get a reaction from the public? Is it unethical for Pepsi to release an advertisement that it knows will travel further than it as a company could push it? According to the LA Times Pepsi got somewhere between $300 million and 400$ million dollars in free advertising. Additionally, A survey conducted by The Morning Consult that shows that, “about 44% of people had a more favorable view of Pepsi after watching the ad. Only 25% of those surveyed had a less favorable view.”(Fortune, 2017) Thus, is it then unethical for Pepsi to not release an ad that will cause some controversy but will ultimately boost sales? Furthermore, does Pepsi apologizing for the advertisement and withdrawing it ethically absolve Pepsi of their actions?
In conclusion, discussing the issue of ethics will only result in more questions than answers but one point can be said with some amount of certainty, business ethics as a concept is cloudy. Public perception and the more expressive members of society appear to define whether an act by a business is ethical or unethical. Hence it is important for businesses such as Pepsi to conduct in depth market research and evaluate all possible reactions to an ad campaign. It is also to imperative for companies to understand that even though the line between unethical and ethical actions is blurred there is still a line that they should not cross just to improve profits.
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Sources:
Fortune. (2017, April 13). Pepsi Kendall Jenner Ad Worked, Poll Says | Fortune.com. Retrieved from http://fortune.com/2017/04/13/pepsi-kendall-jenner-ad-poll/
The Guardian. (2017, April 5). Pepsi pulls Kendall Jenner ad ridiculed for co-opting protest movements | Media | The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/apr/05/pepsi-kendall-jenner-pepsi-apology-ad-protest
LA Times. (2017, April 6). Pepsi’s Kendall Jenner ad: Mistake or subversive strategy? – LA Times. Retrieved from http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-pepsi-crisis-pr-20170406-story.html
New York Times. (2017, April 5). Pepsi Pulls Ad Accused of Trivializing Black Lives Matter – The New York Times. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/05/business/kendall-jenner-pepsi-ad.html
New Statesmen. (2017, April 5). All 23 things wrong with Pepsi’s Kendall Jenner advert. Retrieved from http://www.newstatesman.com/culture/tv-radio/2017/04/all-23-things-wrong-pepsi-s-kendall-jenner-advert