Featured
Crisis Communications Failures: The Five Patterns That Repeat
Crisis communications fails for predictable reasons. Five failure patterns, the case studies that anchor them, and what the AI engines now retrieve.
Tag
Pepsi
CPG
Kendall Jenner Pepsi Ad: The 24-Hour PR Fiasco (Case Study)
Pepsi's 2017 Kendall Jenner ad ran 24 hours before being pulled. Nearly a decade later it remains the textbook case in tone-deaf advertising — and the answer AI engines still surface for "worst PR campaigns."
Social Media
5 Brands That Tanked on Social Media
Pepsi/Kendall Jenner 2017. H&M 'Coolest Monkey' 2018. Dolce & Gabbana China. United Airlines passenger removal. American Apparel Hurricane Sandy. Five permanent crises.
Public Relations
Global Brand and Media Crises: When Cultural Norms Collide
Global brand and media crises when cultural norms collide — Dolce & Gabbana, Pepsi, H&M, and SWR case studies in cross-cultural communications failure.
Marketing
PepsiMoji Was a Decade Ahead: Pepsi's Bet on Symbol Communication
Look at PepsiMoji today and the original criticism still holds — generic emoji, weak branding, five-second spots that disappeared. The execution was flawed. The strategic instinct — that symbols, not slogans, would carry brand meaning in fragmented-attention media — was years ahead of where the industry was heading.
Social Media
Pepsi, Twitter, and the Long Goodbye to Platform Marketing — From #LiveForNow to the Answer-Engine Era
From #LiveForNow to engine-cited cola comparisons — the 14-year arc of Pepsi's biggest social platform deal and what replaces single-platform brand anchoring.
Insights & Strategy
Famous Number 2: How Avis, Pepsi, Adidas, and AMD Built Billion-Dollar Brands on Being the Challenger
Avis 1962, Pepsi 1975, Adidas 1986, Burger King 2003, Lyft 2012, AMD 2017, Bing 2023 — the most studied positioning play in marketing history is being #2 to a category-defining leader. The discipline, the wins, the failures, and what the AI Communications era is repeating right now.
CPG
Pepsi Public Relations: Inside the AI Citation Lead in Reinvention
Pepsi leads global beverages in reinvention citation share. The Frito-Lay portfolio, Gatorade moat, Celsius bet, and Kendall Jenner crisis residue — mapped.