By now you’ve almost certainly heard about the calamity of performative woke-ness that was the Kendall Jenner Pepsi commercial.
When the spot first hit the Internet last week, it seemed like everybody hated it.
The reactions on social media were overwhelmingly negative, and eventually Kendall’s ad was pulled, and Pepsi was forced to issue an embarrassed apology.
But was the outcry as extreme and unanimous as we’ve been led to believe?
Because we live in the age of outrage, there appears to be a backlash in response to the backlash going on, as many are now voicing their support for Kendall and Pepsi.
Obviously, some folks are just enjoying being contrarians on Twitter because, well, that’s the nature of 2017, but apparently there’s a large segment of the population that really enjoyed the commercial and can’t see what all the fuss is about.
A recent poll conducted by The Morning Consult found that a full 44% of respondents took a more favorable view of Pepsi after viewing the ad.
Interestingly, blacks and Hispanics took a more favorable view of the ad than whites.
The research indicates that 75 percent of Hispanic respondents and 51 percent of African American respondents felt more favorably toward Pepsi, compared to just 41 percent of white respondents.
Kendall didn’t fare as well, as only 67 percent of Hispanics and 31 percent of African Americans and 25 percent of whites had more favorable feelings toward her.
Of course the percentages who didn’t take a more favorable view represent tens of millions of people, a large enough percentage of whom were vocal enough on social media to get the ad pulled.
But it seems you can count Alec Baldwin among the small percentage of whites who take a kinder view of Kendall these days:
“Don’t blame @KendallJenner for that spot,” Baldwin tweeted yesterday.
“Kendall is still a very young, inexperienced woman in an awful business. Blame her management.”
Um … what?
Regardless of your feelings toward the commercial, surely we can all agree that Kendall is an adult who’s responsible for her own career choices, right?
Here’s the thing:
Is Kendall’s ad dumb? Yes.
It was a poorly-conceived effort to squeeze profits out of a demographic that’s famously media savvy and cynical about crass commercialism.
Many of the people that Pepsi was targeting this ad saw right through it, and it’s mind-blowing that execs didn’t realize that they would.
So should Kendall and Pepsi be shamed for their attempt? Nah.
The ad was misguided, but not mean-spirited, and both Pepsi and Kendall seem duly chastised for their ignaorance.
Was the commercial more than a little cynical and opportunistic?
Yes, but for other examples of the same attitude, please see every other advertising campaign in history.
Pepsi made a dumb commercial, and Kendall willingly participated for a whole lot of money, and now they’ve both been knocked down a peg as a result.
There. Now we’ve voiced the opinion that will finally bring Internet users of all political stripes together in perfect harmony, and we trust that no one will take to the comments to call us names.
It’s morning in America, people! Someone toss us a damn Pepsi!
