Kendall Jenner Laying Low, Rightfully So

While Pepsi is making some smart choices in diversifying what it does, with a mere 25 percent of its United States sales being devoted to soda, and the rest being divided between its snacks and its drive towards a more healthy approach, its least intelligent choice lately is twofold.

First of all, using a sensitive topic such as a protest - particularly when it's not clear what the assembled group is protesting - to promote your brand is not a smart move. While there are no references to Black Lives Matter, it would appear that the group assembled for the Pepsi ad is coming together for something they all care about. There are some errors; showing a bunch of people coming together to protest anything lately, for instance, does not lead to a dance party with guitars being broken out. Many protests lately appear to degrade fairly quickly into riotous acts that involve people getting injured and arrested.

Secondly, the ad does nothing but make the police look very incompetent. They look like they're involved in crowd control for a rock concert, rather than gearing up to face down protesters bent on making their point. While it can be safely agreed that seeing a bunch of police in riot gear will do nothing to make Pepsi appear fun and enjoyable, there needs to be appropriate context, and the cops shown in the ad are seriously under-equipped. Also, Kendall Jenner would not have been allowed, under any circumstances, to just randomly approach a cop and pass him a Pepsi during such an event; it would have put both her and the cops at risk, as they would have presumably been distracted at the time.

Finally, Kendall Jenner? Really?

I get that the 21-year-old is a beautiful young woman, and I take no issue with that at all. She and her sister Kylie are probably the two cutest of the family, and everyone is painfully aware that if you're going to sell something in the 21st century, it had best be sold by a sexy model or actor. But her presence within the context of the ad seems wildly inappropriate, as though Pepsi wasn't quite sure what to do with her, but needed a way for Kendall Jenner to show up in the ad to make it somehow more legitimate. The message that her tearing off her blonde wig and wiping off her makeup conveys is somewhat empowering - the whole notion of embracing your inner spirit hidden by the trappings of superficiality is a great one - but it only serves to confuse the overall message of the ad, which is muddled enough.

To an extent, Jenner's appearance in the ad makes it seem as though she's the Great White Hope, or something along those lines, and that's mortifying enough. I'm sure she's a lovely enough girl, but the way she has been marketed hasn't been lovely or appropriate, given her relatively young age. Again, though, sex sells, and every company including Pepsico knows this. Kendall Jenner has been touted as the next "It Girl" in the modeling industry, not a superstar of social justice, so it doesn't really make sense that she'd somehow try and unite everyone with a Pepsi.

Also, the fact of Pepsi being used to somehow break the supposed tension springing from this protest that appears to be more of a street party is insulting to human nature in the extreme. It makes the corporate heads seem convinced that their product is somehow the equivalent of manna from heaven, and is the ultimate cure all. If there's anything more insulting to the human population, who seems to be increasingly focused on notions of social justice, I'm not quite sure what is.

If I were Kendall Jenner, I'd be laying low, too. I'd also be having a lengthy conversation with my manager to try and determine what an appropriate next career move might be; this ridiculous Pepsi ad will follow her for some time to come.