Have you seen any of the new Pepsi commercials with the polar bears?
WHAT, huh? Pepsi? You mean Coke?
Yes, I mean Pepsi. The new campaign features the polar bears from the old Coke campaign. I am not sure how I feel about this, for a couple of reasons. First, the polar bears automatically make me think of Coke. Why wouldn’t I? The polar bears were part of Coke’s multi-million dollar campaign years ago. Polar bears with a soda = Coke.
Second, I have to ask myself, does Pepsi not have any creative people to devise a campaign of their own? Why do they have to steal a campaign from their competition? And, does Pepsi really want their loyalists thinking about Coke?
In one of their spots, there is actually a bear holding a Coke bottle and the other bears toss him a Pepsi. So is this the way of saying Pepsi is better?
The other thing about this spot is that they have what looks to me like a grizzly bear, but appears to be a polar bear with a tan. The bears are on a boat! What, polar bears live in the COLD, how do you put them on a boat in the sun?
If they wanted to create chatter around their campaign, then consider this mission accomplished! If they wanted to have a successful Pepsi campaign, I’m not so sure.
Bill Bernbach and the Creative Revolution
Bernbach, along with James Doyle and Max Dane, founded DDB in 1949. He had left Grey Advertising in “an act of defiance,” taking one small