(Untitled)

[iconox]

You might as well pop open a Pepsi MAX and swallow; 6A played you well.

How could they have not predicted the backlash after all the past dramas? 6A knew it would whip everyone up into a paranoid, self-righteous frenzy. By mid-September, nearly every livejournal user will be familiar with Pepsi MAX, not because of traditional advertisement, but

Comments

[varro]

Out? Don't let the door hit you. And I'm still going to fuel my work with copious amounts of Diet Dr Pepper, no matter how much advertising Pepsi puts on this site...

[irishmasms]

[jigglypuff]

That really says everything I had to say, except that there are already people who've made those journals.

[jigglypuff]

...although I will agree that the e-lawsuits are beginning to get on my nerves. I don't think a court will really take this seriously.

[imaginarycircus]

Not even with internet lawyers?

[ardath_rekha]

*nod* According to the theories of priming, constantly encountering a particular brand in a negative context will result in aversion to the brand. If I were actually a cola drinker (uck!) I'd be inclined at this point to pick anything but Pepsi on a store shelf.

I have to say that the first time I went to a page that was splattered with a zillion protest Pepsi v-gifts, I cracked the hell up. But I haven't actually contributed to that myself, because yeah, Pepsi's not actually tracking whether or not their product placement is being used in a positive or negative light; just that it's being used.

So from the standpoint of "all publicity is good publicity," people are rewarding Pepsi with their protests. But if you believe in the concepts of negative priming and message saturation, there are probably a lot of people who are already so sick of seeing that product that this campaign may actually be losing PepsiCo more sales than they're gaining. Unfortunately, nobody's really set up a way to empirically track that.

[emarkienna]

Well you do have a point, though it's not helped by directing it to members of this community - the problem is those people who are spamming with those v-gifts, not by anyone talking about it (and for this isn't really the right community - go check out the latest news post, or no_lj_ads to see people discussing the issue).

Yes, it is hard to see how 6A couldn't have forseen it wouldn't be popular, especially the way they present it as a feature (woo, free v-gifts). I do wonder if they simply didn't see the possibility for abuse, or whether they don't care, knowing that loads of Pepsi spam is still more advertising.

[makomk]

Gee, I wonder what reason 6A could have for suspecting that users wouldn't like a feature allowing other users - including ones they've banned from their journal - to spam their profile with Pepsi Max ads, or that said feature would be abused.

[raikoala]

Is it really desirable for any company to be mentioned in a primarily negative context? There's a great risk of it backfiring.

I for my part never heard of Pepsi Max, might have picked it up in a store for an unhealthy try, who knows. Now I certainly won't.

Random: It's amazing what companies pour together to make people drink it. Ew.