Throughout Pepsi’s history, the cola company has often utilized the modeling theory of learning to convey a brand message to consumers. The Cola Conquest is a documentary film that follows the creation and growth of cola drinks throughout the United States, and eventually around the world. Coca-Cola’s main competitor, Pepsi, has been the only alternative with a shared history in what marketing historians call, the “Cola Wars,” proving that the cola brand has always been a worthy competitor to the sugary drink conglomerate (Angelico, 1998).

Since it’s conception, Coke’s marketing has represented quintessential American symbols and values of freedom and family, while often drawing on nostalgia and wholesome traditions to target middle to upper class American consumers of the dominant culture. To differentiate itself from Coke, Pepsi took an alternate direction, using, pop culture imagery and icons in its marketing to reach youth and street culture demographics (Angelico, 1998). The documentary features original Pepsi commercials starring Michael Jackson, who’d taken the world by storm with innovative creativity and catchy pop songs. Similarly, supermodel Cindy Crawford lent her star power to the youthful brand by acting as somewhat of a spokesperson (Webb, Angelico, & Neidik, 1998). This type of cognitive learning that we refer to as modeling demonstrates how celebrities and pop culture icons directly influence young (and youthful) consumers who learned to favour Pepsi over Coke (Dahl, White, & Solomon, 2015).

Modeling can play an important factor in a consumer’s decision making process since it plays into our desires to imitate the behaviour of others. Modeling as a marketing strategy can be particularly effective when the models are individuals (or more appropriately, “influencers”) who consumers admire. Marketers utilize the learning theory of modeling by featuring individuals which consumers aspire to be like or imitate into their advertising campaigns (Dahl, White, & Solomon, 2015). When Pepsi launched the infamous, “Pepsi Generation” marketing campaign, they used celebrities, models, and edgy pop culture icons of the time, to connect the brand with consumers who identified as part of youth street culture (Angelico, 1998). Modeling proved to be a successful strategy for this campaign because it spoke directly to children who are more easily influenced by celebrity star-power as well as their peers (Dahl, White, & Solomon, 2015).

These advertisement campaigns were proven highly successful since entertainment and celebrity status was growing drastically in the 1980’s (Angelico, 1998). Michael Jackson was Pepsi’s most successful celebrity model, inspiring subculture youth in the urban cities of the United States to model the pop icon’s choice  in cola drinks (Angelico, 1998). One individual shared with me that when Michael Jackson’s first Pepsi commercial premiered, teens rushed home to record it and re-watched repeatedly it in admiration. (Angelico, 1998). Pepsi continues to apply this marketing strategy as seen in their infamous television commercial featuring model and reality star Kendall Jenner. The intention was to leverage Jenner’s global popularity and influence on the youth market; however, the content and messaging of the ad was in poor taste and caused controversy by both appropriating and trivializing the Black Lives Matter activist movement that campaigns to bring awareness of and an end to systemic racism and violence towards black youth. Despite being pulled from the airways, Jenner’s endorsement and association with Pepsi drew considerable attention towards the brand.

In response to Coca Cola’s capitalization on traditional upper-class American culture, I believe that Pepsi appropriately targeted a more specific consumer market of urban street culture, by integrating highly admired pop culture icons. As Coca-Cola has successfully captured the attention of mainstream consumers, Pepsi successfully adapted its brand by claiming a brand position closely reflective of street and pop culture, thereby becoming know as the “Pepsi Generation”. Its positioning strategy established both a title adopted by youth and a much needed image for the brand which youth desired to be a part of.