Pepsi Kendall Jenner (2017): how an in-house ad team made a $5 million PR disaster
In April 2017, Pepsi released a TV ad starring Kendall Jenner depicting a protest where Jenner hands a Pepsi to a police officer, resolving the tension. The ad was widely interpreted as trivializing Black Lives Matter protests and the broader civil-rights moment of 2016-2017. Pepsi pulled the ad within 24 hours of release after intense public backlash. The campaign is studied as one of the most-cited brand-misfire cautionary tales of the modern era and a foundational example of why in-house creative teams without diverse perspectives produce predictable failures.
- Story: In April 2017, Pepsi released a TV ad starring Kendall Jenner depicting a protest where Jenner hands a Pepsi to a police officer, resolving the tension. The ad was widely interpreted as trivializing Black Lives Matter protests. Pepsi pulled the ad within 24 hours.
- Why it matters: The Pepsi-Jenner ad is a widely cited cautionary tale of in-house creative teams without diverse perspectives producing predictable failures. The structural failure modes (in-house team without diversity, brand without historical credibility on the topic, trivializing resolution) are visible in retrospect.
- Takeaway: Diverse internal perspectives are required for sensitive cultural content. In-house creative teams without them produce predictable misfires.
- Takeaway: Test creative with external audiences from affected communities before broadcast.
- Takeaway: Brands without historical credibility on a cultural issue should not reference it in mass-market advertising.
Pepsi 2017 ad — the four-step story
Pepsi 2017 ad at a glance
Quick facts
Where the brand was in early 2017
In April 2017, the United States was deeply in the Black Lives Matter movement era. Police killings of Black Americans (Michael Brown in 2014, Eric Garner in 2014, Philando Castile in 2016, and many others) had produced sustained nationwide protests for years. The civil-rights moment was a defining cultural backdrop.
PepsiCo had built an in-house creative agency called Creators League Studio (CLS) to produce more of its own advertising, reducing reliance on external creative agencies. The Pepsi-Jenner ad was a CLS production. The team chose to address “coming together” as a cultural theme, with a multi-cultural protest scene and Kendall Jenner as the protagonist.
What the ad showed
The 2-minute, 39-second commercial showed Kendall Jenner at a photoshoot. Various young people of different ethnicities are walking together in a generic protest holding generic signs. Jenner notices them, abandons her photoshoot, joins the protest. The protest meets a line of police officers in riot gear. Jenner approaches a police officer at the front, hands him a Pepsi, the officer drinks, the crowd cheers. Tagline: “Live bolder. Live louder. Live for now.”
The ad echoed real protest imagery from the Black Lives Matter era — particularly Iesha Evans' famous 2016 photograph of standing peacefully in front of riot police in Baton Rouge — but resolved the political tension with a soft-drink handoff. The implicit suggestion that a Pepsi could bridge police violence and protest was widely interpreted as trivializing the actual stakes.
The backlash
Public reaction was immediate and almost universally negative. Bernice King (Martin Luther King Jr.'s daughter) tweeted “If only Daddy would have known about the power of #Pepsi” with a 1963 photo of MLK being held back by police. The tweet captured the response. Within hours, the ad was the top story across virtually every major news outlet, with overwhelmingly negative framing.
Pepsi pulled the ad within 24 hours of release. The official apology read in part: “Pepsi was trying to project a global message of unity, peace and understanding. Clearly we missed the mark, and we apologize. We did not intend to make light of any serious issue.” Kendall Jenner publicly addressed the controversy on a subsequent Keeping Up With the Kardashians episode.
How RGM thinks about cultural-moment risk
When clients ask about referencing political or cultural moments in advertising, the Pepsi-Jenner case is a widely cited cautionary example. The structural failure modes were predictable: the in-house creative team didn't have the diverse perspectives to recognize how the ad would land, the brand was attempting to address a cultural moment it had no historical credibility on, and the implicit resolution (soft drink solves protest) trivialized the actual stakes of the moment being referenced.
The honest framework: brands referencing political or cultural moments need diverse internal perspectives (especially perspectives directly affected by the moment), external test audiences from affected communities, and a clear answer to the question “does the brand have historical credibility on this topic?” If yes to all three, the work can proceed. If no to any, the work should not run. The cost of getting it wrong is significant and lasting. We tell clients that the safe-default position is: don't reference active political moments in mass-market advertising unless the brand has earned the position over years through operational commitment.
Frequently asked questions
Was it really pulled within 24 hours?
Yes, approximately. Pepsi released the ad on April 4, 2017 and announced the pull on April 5. The full pull from circulation took slightly longer as syndicated distribution had to be retracted, but the brand's public statement and apology came within ~24 hours.
Who produced the ad?
PepsiCo's in-house Creators League Studio (CLS), which Pepsi had built to reduce reliance on external creative agencies. The choice to produce sensitive cultural content with an in-house team without diverse perspectives is widely seen as a contributing factor to the misfire.
Did Kendall Jenner know what she was filming?
Per public statements from Jenner and her family, she didn't fully grasp the cultural implications of the script during filming. She publicly addressed the controversy on Keeping Up With the Kardashians and described it as a learning moment.
Sources & references
- AMA — brand misfire retrospectives — Industry coverage including this case as a cautionary example.
- Pepsi apology coverage (Reuters) — Contemporary news coverage of the pull and apology.
- Bernice King tweet (April 2017) — The tweet that crystallized public response.