I almost made it two whole days without writing about that damn Pepsi cheer. I really don't understand how it got out of the design phase. Why would Pepsi insert itself awkwardly between Canadians and hockey? Coke would know better...
Case in point: eight years ago, Coke ran an ad campaign to align itself with Canada's cheers for Team Canada. Where Pepsi chose to tell us we were doing it wrong, Coke told us we were doing it right. Here's a Coke ad from 2002 that the Pepsi Canada marketing executives should have watched before agreeing to the national embarrassment that is Cheer Nation.
They say there's no such thing as bad publicity so long as they spell your name right. I strongly disagree. This Pepsi campaign couldn't have gone worse, and the moment I saw the first ad I knew it would fail. The backlash against Pepsi amongst this nations millions and millions of hockey fans will be felt for a long, long time. In fact, every time my team loses a game, and as a Leafs fan that's all the time, I now blame it on that damn Pepsi cheer.
But that Coke ad is pretty good. They seem to get it. Pepsi should take notes.
Other Toronto Mike Pepsi Cheer Rants:
