Michael Jackson “Pepsi Generation”
This may be the granddaddy of these kind of commercials, I could be wrong however. When Pepsi landed the rights for Michael Jackson to star in their ads it was HUGE! This was the first as he did, and yes there is a story about an accident he had filming these ads but that is a story for another day.
Michael Jackson “Bad”
Now one thing I didn’t mention was that sometimes, this can be a bad a idea. The creators will rush the ad together without ever really hearing the song. And when the song is violent or religious (see next example) things can get a little sticky. Here is a later Pepsi ad Michael did which didn’t air long. How huge was this ad? It was in parts!
Madonna “Like a Prayer”
Oh it seemed so simple. Pepsi is “like a prayer” so no harm in using the song in their ad, right? It aired once and was a huge hit. Then the actual song and video was released. And let’s just say, the ad ONLY aired once! The actual video had potentially offensive images (cross burnings??) and even the Vatican was outraged. This seems silly today, to be honest, but in the late 80’s it was huge!
Whitney Houston “Coke is It”
So coke sure wasn’t going to be undone. They had the King of Pop? Coke got the Queen! Ah, here we go! Whitney was awesome not only was this a clean and safe ad, but she even sang the name of the product! Something Madonna refused to do.
Elton John/Paula Abdul “Just for the Taste of it”
Before Abdul was a joke on American Idol she was a huge star. She did several ads for coke, including this one with Elton John
And yes Elton did a commercial for Pepsi recently but I had no memory of seeing it.
Paula Abdul CGI celebrities
This is hard to believe now but back when it first came around taking footage of a celebrity from a movie and CGI’ing them into an ad was not only amazing, it was even controversial! One of the first examples of this technology is seen in this Paula Abdul Coke commercial.
Not to be outdone was this Elton version which was played a million times
David Bowie and Tina Turner “Modern Love”
What in the world can I say about this one? Two absolute legends in a Pepsi commercial? It would have to be big..and it is!
Ray Charles “Uh Huh”
Back to Pepsi, who seems to have most of these, back in the late 80’s Ray Charles was known as the Pepsi spokesman for this song which became a household word.
Robert Palmer “Simply Irresistible”
This was a case of Robert Palmer simply taking his hit song and app;lying it to the product. It isn’t even a clever ad since it’s basically a homogenized version of the music video. So why mention it? Because this was my introduction to the song and I love this ad…before I knew what it really was. Ah I still love it.
Brittney Spears “Joy of Pepsi”
Ok most of these are 80’s and 90’s so let’s Fast forward a few yers and we got this ad from Brittney during a Super Bowl game. (Hmm, Super Bowl ads. Have I talked about them yet?).
Though honestly I liked Faith Hill’s version a little more.
Did I miss your favorite? And no I didn’t forget The Spice Girls. Ugghh Since there wasn’t nearly enough Coke here (the Taylor Swift ad’s are horrible) I leave you with one more Paula ad, which I must have seen a hundred times also. Why do people call her a sell out, she did a bunch of these….oh now I get it.
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