Pepsi Cola Company has been around for 119 years, which makes it a household name. Recently, Pepsi made headlines about releasing a controversial commercial featuring the well known socialite, Kendall Jenner. In the commercial, Kendall notices a protest beginning to form and decides to join in. The commercial, then, shows Kendall offering a Pepsi to one of the police officers, which makes him smile and back down.

The internet, however, did not back down.

Twitter went into an uproar with many criticising comments once the commercial was released to the public. Some of the more famous tweets were “Thank god, we finally found a way to rid our country of police brutality” and “Who knew all you needed to persuade police is with a Pepsi”. At first, Pepsi did not release a statement about the whole situation; however, once the criticisms became trending, Pepsi released a public apology. Pepsi stated that they were “trying to project a global message of unity, peace and understanding. Clearly, we missed the mark and apologize. We did not intend to make light of any serious issue”.

Twitter users were not the only one to criticize the ad. NBC News stated that the commercial seemed rather odd, noting that “no one seems too worked up about anything.” Normally, in protests, emotions run high, since the cause is one that people care about. Pepsi’s add was missing that. NBC also stated that,”Pepsi is not the first multinational brand to attempt to use counterculture and protest movements to sell its product. In 1971, Coca-Cola’s iconic “I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing,” in opposition to the Vietnam War.” This commercial also got a lot of attention even back then.

Due to all the negative comments aimed at Pepsi, the company decided to remove the commercial from the internet. Although lots of people disagreed with the commercial, some actually liked the ad. Polling research from Morning Consult asked more than 2,000 Americans to rate how their opinion of The Pepsi Company changed after viewing the Kendall Jenner commercial. A surprising number of people liked what they saw. Forty-four percent said they saw the soda maker in a more positive light after watching the ad. Thirty-one percent stated that they did not see them in a different light at all.

While some may say that the commercial is fine, the overall opinion from Americans is that this was a miss on the company’s part. One thing is for sure: Americans today have no qualms about speaking out when they disapprove of something. If the commercial did anything at all, it showed how people everywhere will stand together for what they believe in.