adriana rodriguez blogs

Adriana Rodriguez

Professor Karlianne Seri

WRT 102.72

13 February 2018

Pepsi Commercial Rhetorical Analysis

On April 4th of two thousand and seventeen, Pepsi, a large soda brand released a commercial alongside Kendall Jenner; a reality star, model and cultural influencer. In the commercial there there are people marching for peace, Kendall Jenner then stops in the middle of her photo shoot and joins the march. In the end, she hands the officers who tried to stops the march a can of Pepsi causing everyone to unite. The social media world revolted, questioning the purpose of the commercial. The video is a commercial with the intent of selling pepsi but, why did they decide to sell their product in the way that they did? The wrong use of ethos in the commercial and the overuse of pathos in the commercial stroke the wrong impact of persuasion to the audience causing its controversy.

The Kardashian-Jenner family as individuals are controversial people given that they own a reality show and people didn’t forget that as they watched the commercial.What does Kendall know about fighting for her rights? That is what most people asked themselves when they saw the commercial. Ironically, that is what is shown in the commercial. While the march advocating for peace is going on, Kendall in shown modeling at a photoshoot. This sparked in the audience’s mind how out of touch she is with the rest of the “normal” people. Her life seemed very privileged and wasn’t the right person to get involved in issues like those. When she realized the the commotion of the march through the window of the photo studio, she removes her wig and her bold lipstick. When she joins the protest she is wearing natural makeup and in the most cliche “casual” outfit: all denim everything. Her intent of “fitting in” also showed how unrelatable she is to the rest of the people who don’t have a life like hers. She had to “downgrade” her image to fit in. Because of her image she didn’t seem as a credible source to have a voice in the commercial, therefore her ethos failed to strike the reaction that Pepsi wanted the viewers to have.

The overuse of emotional persuasion  tactics can discredit the credibility of an argument. In the commercial there was an abundance of emotional appeals.The protest in the commercial was very similar to the ones happening in current times relating to the government in power. People out there are fighting for the same rights that the people in commercial are protesting therefore it stirred up emotions to the viewers. Also a peace protest and police man in the same video causes a lot of emotion because of all the police brutality that has been going on. When Kendall Jenner handed the policemen a can of Pepsi, everyone started cheering on implying that the problem was solved because they shared a can of pepsi, that would bring unity . I believed that the intent of the content creator was to imply that they can if they can agree to one thing both the protesters and the police would unite and bring peace.It perceived as disrespectful for Pepsi to say that a can of Pepsi can bring world peace.

Another use of emotional appeal in the commencal was the background sound. The song was definitely trying to the get audience to do something. The song is “Lions” by Skip Marley. The lyrics of the song include: “yeah, if ya took all my rights away”,”hates been winning but the lovers aint done”,  these lines suggest that  there are people whose rights are being taken away and all of the hate in this world has encouraged the hate to spread. This sends a message to people to reassure them of what is happening. Besides the visual of the protest, the song is really emphasising the issues in the commercial and the current events. In the song the verse is a call action. The verse states: “cause we are the lions, we are the chosen were gonna shine out the dark, we are the movement, this generation, you better know who we are who we are”. In this verse the singer is insinuating that this generation is the generation that needs to step up and make a change. In the commercial there was a lot of young people and I believe that Kendall Jenner definitely attracted the youth. The adds on emotion because it’s not just telling their viewers what is happening, it’s telling people to go do something about it.

Overall, even though the response of the audience wasn’t how the commercial creators wanted. If the intent was to move people in such a way to have an audience to agree with pepsi in the problems that were being presented. Maybe Pepsi was trying to tell the audience that they support certain causes and that they believe that unity and putting differences aside, solves problems. However the obvious intent of a commercial is for a company to get their brand be known and for people to consume their product. The commercial was successful because it definitely got people to talk about pepsi.

The use of persuasive ethos and pathos appeals were wrongfully used in this commercial. There was too many aspects that caused anger in this commercial. The song persuaded the viewers to do something. The marches and the reason for the marches was too close to reality and very controversial in itself. Kendall’s ethos didn’t really help the commercial  because she wasn’t a credible source to talk about the issues that were presented in the video. Also the way that pepsi presented the solution for all of the problems in the commercial the issues was peace, Pepsi decided to state that if they shared a can of pepsi all of the problems would of been resolved which is something that I think was a mistake because it wasn’t really obvious what they were trying to do.

Looking more into depth with this commercial, my interest in analyzing this commercial grew because of one unanswered question: The whole purpose of a commercial is to advertise your product and get people to buy it, How is involving controversial topics into a commercial going to sell a can of Pepsi? Were the author’s of the commercial implying the ridiculous assumption that if you buy a can of Pepsi it would fix social issues? There is definetly more to this commercial than a marketing strategy. It’s almost as if someone wanted to shed a light of controversial issues an includesd a can of Pepsi in the end of the video because Pepsi paid for th equipment used in the commercial rather than Pepsi advertising their product.

I argue that the purpose if this text was to show that if we all put our differences aside and share something in common like a can of Pepsi we could bring peace to the world. In the commercial I see a lot of Ethos: To have Kendall Jenner in the commercial is a form of Ethos because she is a staple piece in societies influencers, She is someone who has an impact in the way that most people carry their everyday lives specifically referring to fashion. She also represents the people who follow her. Pepsi is a successful brand and has some credibility. Besides Kendall Jenner, I think that the most important role in the commercial wasn’t Kendall, it was the people marching behind her, I feel like they bring more credibility because they represent us; the people that Pepsi is trying to sell something to. The audience has a higher chance of relating to the people marching for their rights opposing to someone who lives a privilidged life. The commercial is driven by emotion (logos). This commercial is relating controversial issues in the government which millenials (who this commecial is targeted to) are resistant to. The march or protest that is going on also brings some emotion because people are actually fighting for these rights in the real world.  The Police stirs up some emotions to the people watching the commercial. The commercial, included a diverse body of people of different colors, gender and religion. The song that was used in the commercial definetly brought some emotions by including lyrics like “hate keeps winning but the lovers ain’t done”, “this generation, we are the chosen”.

The argument in the commercial strikes emotion. I can argue that the commercial makes the fallci of including overly sentimental appeals. I think that the argument would of work had they not used Kendall’s Ethos. I do hypothesizes that’s the used of the rhetorical appeals specially the  pathos that interfered with authority in this commercial caused its controversy.

A while back the social media world acted in outrage in responce to a commercial by Pepsi; a soda brand. In the commercial, they show Kendall Jenner, (a staple person in today’s pop culture no matter how controversial) living a “regular Tuesday” in her life which consist of a photo shoot and a privileged lifestyle. They also take a snapshot the life of the other half, the “regular” people who have to fight for their rights not being taken away because they downt posses a certain level of privilege. While the “regular” people protest the policemen show up to stop the commotion going on . In the end, Kendall Jenner hands a policeman a can of the Pepsi soda.

I chose to analyze this commercial because it is very relatable to the life that I am living. This commercial involves Kendall Jenner someone who has influenced the society that I’m living and social issues in which I am old enough to be aware of and that involve my interests. This commercial was done in controversial times in reference to our current government and it involves a member of the controversial Kardashian-Jenner family. As controversial as the two may seem they both have a power over us the regular people with less power.

Not only do I want to analyze this commercial because of its controversy. I also want to analyze the author’s perspective and the message that he was trying to convey when the author decided to make this commercial. I would also want to analyze the reason behind why this comercial receive the backlash that it did. In other words I want to analyze how the use of  ethos, logos and pathos in this commercial cause ambiguous reactions on many people. Because this is a Pepsi commercial I can infer that the overall goal is to promote the brand but I want to be able to get as close as I can into analyzing why the author of the commercial decided to advertise the brand in this way.

Scrolling throught social media and seeing hatred comment s on this commercial can easily make me look at this and agree but I want to dig deeper into the commercial and come up with my own opinion on the commercial.

Hello, My name is Adriana Rodriguez, I consider myself as an outgoing introvert who tells many corny jokes. I am Dominican-American and a first-generation student. I was born in New Jersey but I’ve lived in New York my entire life.Being out here in Long Island is a huge difference from what I am used to. Growing up I moved a lot and I’ve been to more than 10 schools in my lifetime. The most interesting school I’ve been to was High school. I went to Food and Finance Highschool in Midtown Manhattan; a culinary-based school, therefore, a typical day would consist of solving equations, reading, writing and preparing all kinds cuisines; not to mention the endless dishwashing we had to do at the end of the day. Four years of culinary didn’t spark my interest to pursue a career in the culinary field. Somewhere in the middle of the junior year of high school, I decided that I wanted a career in the medical field. So I came to Stony Brook as a Health-Science major with on a pre-med track. When I get older I wish to become an Optometrist. I am into podcasts and I’ve had the amazing opportunity to co-host my own podcast( If you would like to listen to 30 minutes of cringy-ness you can search FSTW on the podcast app or SoundCloud).  I love to speak for and about mental health issues; I believe that everyone has the right to feel comfortable in the own skin and find happiness in their everyday lives. I love acting and writing performance pieces. Hopefully, this shows you a part of who I am and I can not wait to share more of my writing with you!