Ms.

Kassondra Musick

401 Williams Hall

Muncie, IN 47306

November 9, 2008

ABC, Inc.

500 S. Buena Vista Street

Burbank, Ca 91521-4551

Dear Sirs,

My name is KassondraMusick and I am a student at Ball State

University. I am writing to you because I have done some research on
one of the commercials you have been asked to air. I have reviewed
and researched the commercial Pepsi has sent you about the two
truckers in a diner. I have found some quality information that I am
sure can assist you in your decision making of whether or not you will
be airing this commercial on your television network.

Please take the time to carefully review the following information and
notify me if you have any further questions. Thank you for your time
and consideration.

Sincerely,

Kassondra Musick
 “Nothing Else is a Pepsi”

Not long after Pepsi was

invented in the 1890s, a brutal war began between their company and

their rival Coca- Cola (Pepsi Legacy). Commercials seem to be the

most common way of battling between the two companies. Both

companies have aired commercials that show their rival’s product as

less satisfying than their own. Pepsi has recently created a commercial

to persuade consumers to believe that even those employed by the

Coca- Cola Company prefer Pepsi products. The high quality

commercial appeals to the audience’s values and emotions, clearly

shows what the product is as well as its rival, and strays from false

advertising and logical fallacies. However, the quality of the

commercial is insignificant when the consumers are unwilling to be

persuaded.

Pepsi had no problem catching the audience’s attention in the

commercial. Author Thomas Reynolds explains the importance of

“appealing to values and emotions” in his book titled Understanding

Consumer Decision Making. The Pepsi commercial clearly appeals to

the emotions of the consumer. The opening scene shows a small diner

with one waitress making coffee. Already, the consumer is placed into

a safe, comforting situation. A soothing song begins playing and Coke

and Pepsi salesmen set their differences aside and initiate

conversation with each other. What is expected by the consumer to be

a tense situation is actually quite calm. The two salesmen show

family pictures, pat each other on the backs, and laugh together. At

this time, the consumer is asking himself ifCoke and Pepsi are

supposed to be rivals; why are they getting along?

The situation starts to get a little weird when the Coke man slides

his can over to the Pepsi man, but when the Pepsi man takes a drink,

he smiles. The consumer can still hearthe soothing song plying in the

background signaling everything is still going good. Next, the Pepsi

man gives his can to the Coke man and he takes a sip and smiles.

However, when the Pepsi man tries to take his can back, the Coke man

will not give it to him. A fight breaks out in the diner, but the soothing

music still continues to play as the windows break creating a humorous

and entertaining experience for the audience. By the end of the

commercial, Pepsi has appealed to the emotions of the consumer has

them interested and by doing this, the consumer is led to believe that

Pepsi is so much better that even the Coke salesman prefers it to his

own product (Pepsi vs. Coke).

 Many companies today get so carried away with the idea of

making the commercial appealingthey forget to include the reasons

why their product is better than other products. In fact many

marketers struggle to even relate the commercial to the product that is

supposedly being advertised. Author Susan Martin explains in her

book that many people “feel that commercials do not indicate much

about the product or its quality” (227). Showing a slogan at the end of

a commercial for three seconds with the name of the product will leave

the audience remembering the fancy commercial, but most likely not

the product’s name. The Pepsi commercial not only involves the

product, but the product is the main idea. However, the consumer

does not know whether the commercial is promoting Coke or Pepsi

until close to the end. Pepsi does this in order to keep interested both

those who prefer Pepsi and those who prefer Coke so no one loses

attraction to the commercial. The consumer feels compelled to watch

the entire commercial in order to find out what the commercial is

promoting.

The commercial includes the rival product so the consumers

know which product they should buy in place of the other product. The

Media Awareness Network calls this style of advertising “putdowns”.

Advertisers use these types of commercials to make sure the consumer

knows what company he should not buy from. They can be quite mean

at times and show the competitor as “the bad guy” or “pathetic” (Food
Advertising Strategies). Although the Pepsi commercial shows the

Coke Company as “pathetic”, they are not extremely cruel. Pepsi plays

it clean and careful with this commercial, in hopes the consumers will

see and commend the company for doing so.

The Pepsi Company is also smart not to use what authors of the

textbook Envision call “logical fallacies” (Alfano47). The consumer

population is becoming more aware of the tricks advertisers use to

persuade them to buy their products. Today’s consumers are learning

that a specific shoe is not what makes you run or jump better; instead

it is you that makes those things possible. Instead of Pepsi making a

commercial that says drinking Pepsi will make you stronger, the

company sticks with the straightforwardidea that you should drink it

because it simply tastes better. Pepsi does this to show consumers

they are honest and are not trying to cheat their customers. This type

of advertising is smart for today’s television audience, but is it worth

showing if the audience will not allow themselves to be persuaded by

it?

There is no evidence to show this commercial is anything other than

well created. However, one might ask, what’s the point? Pepsi and

Coke have always rivaled with each other, but how does the nation

really decide which is better? The main reason is not the ads and

commercials. Taste is not even the most important. Journalist Steve

Connor wrote about a laboratory-controlled version of the famous Pepsi

Challenge [that] revealed that [flavor] seems to be the last thing that

consumers rely on in their preference for Pepsi or Coca-Cola” (Official

par. 4). Pepsi can put as many commercials out there saying they are

better than Coke, but a person who has been drinking Coke all his life

will most likely keep drinking Coke. The truth is, both Pepsi and Coke’s

greatest advertisers are family members and sometimes friends.

I have always preferred

Pepsi because that is what my family

drank all the time. I have a friend whose entire family drinks only coke

and will not even think of trying Pepsi. Through a blind taste test we

both experienced, I chose Pepsi and he chose coke. Science

correspondent Alok Jhawrote an article that explains the only reason

we chose our favorite one was because that is what sparked our brain

and that is what our brains thought of as "the better one”. Our brains

know what drink we prefer and remembers the taste so when we drink
it, we say we like it. Including recording blind taste tests and

commercials, the companies have wasted billions of dollars to get

consumers to drink their product instead of the other company’s.

Although there may be an occasional consumer that switches due to

some form of advertising, unless one company burns the other

company’s building down, the war will continue. This means Pepsi may

never be able to convince everyone of its slogan at the end of the

commercial, “nothing else is like a Pepsi”.

Works Cited

Alfano, Christine L., Alyssa J. O’Brien. Envision. New York: Pearson

Education, Inc., 2008.

Connor, Steve. “Official: Coke takes over parts of the brain that Pepsi

can’t reach.” The Independent. 2004. Independent News. 7 Nov. 2008

<http://www.hnl.bcm.tmc.edu/cache/coke_pepsi_independent_co_uk.ht

m>.

“FAQ.” ABC.com. 2008. American Broadcasting Company. 4 Nov. 2008

<http://abc.go.com/site/faq.html#1>.

“Food Advertising Strategies.” Media Awareness Network. 2008. 4 Nov.

2008
<http://www.mediaawareness.ca/english/resources/educational/handou

ts/advertising_marketing/food_ad_strategies.cfm>.

Jha, Alok. “Coke or Pepsi? It’s all in the head.” World News. 2004.

Guardian. 7 Nov. 2008

<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/jul/29/science.research>.

Martin, Susan, ed. The effects of the mass media on the use and abuse

of alcohol. Bethesda, MD: National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and

Alcoholism, 1995.

“Pepsi Legacy.” Pepsi.com. 2008. PepsiCo. 4 Nov. 2008 <

http://pepsi.com/>.

“Pepsi vs Coke.” Youtube.com. 2008. 29 Oct. 2008

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EMo6o0BtFG8>.

Sellers, Patricia. “The Brand King’s Challenge.” Fortune 149.7 (2004):

192-200. Academic Search Premier. EBSCOhost. Ball State University

Lib., Muncie, IN. 3 Nov. 2008 <

http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?vid=6&hid=104&sid=bd381254

a3e44adab7fd818422f973a3%40sessionmgr104&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZW

hvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=aph&AN=12649224>.

Reynolds, Thomas J., Jerry C. Olson, ed. Understanding consumer

decision making : the means-end approach to marketing and

advertising strategy. Mahwah, N.J. : Lawrence Erlbaum, 2001.