Diet Pepsi Max Commercial

· Product Name: Diet Pepsi Max
· Year Made: 2008
· Ad Agency: BBDO

The Diet Pepsi Max Ad for the 2008 Super Bowl certainly turned a lot of heads, and
not only on the commercial either. Everyone at the party I was at for the game was sitting mesmerized as the commercial was playing. What makes this ad so special that a large group of teenagers were stopped in their tracks? The answer is simple: it was funny! What set this commercial apart, however, was the head bobbing technique. It is the attention grabber along with one of the funniest things to see someone do. Seeing people in their everyday lives falling asleep brings everyone back to a time that either they fell asleep on the go or saw someone else do it (which is even better!). Not only was there definite puffery with the snapping of the head when everyone fell asleep, but after they drank the Diet Pepsi Max they all bobbed their heads to the beat as well. This ad is not really selling anything other than the actual product because it is full of average everyday people living their lives. It did promote a universal sleepiness, but I don’t think that is an uncommon belief.

This ad was very effective to not only one, but many different groups of people. Since this commercial targeted multiple age groups and ethnicities, the Pepsi Company had the hard task of appealing to everyone. When they made their ad they knew that they would be dealing with die hard football fans, husbands and wives of the die hard football fans, casual football watchers, channel surfers, and children. They know that a good amount of these people would be drinking, and since their product is non-alcoholic, those people would need a little bit of persuasion. By using one of the most popular songs of the year What Is Love by Haddaway, they got a lot of people to pay attention right off the bat. Then by using the head bobbing technique they turned a few more heads. The fact that the commercial was on during the Super Bowl pretty much guaranteed that everyone else was watching anyway (since everyone knows that this is the best time to watch commercials). I definitely went out and tried the Diet Pepsi Max after seeing this commercial out of pure curiosity, and I do not even like diet soda. In fact, I usually avoid it like the plague...