Pepsi is back in the game. The soft drink brand will advertise in next year’s Super Bowl after sitting out last year for the first time in more than two decades.
Pepsi said Wednesday it will air three ads created by fans for its Pepsi MAX brand. The company has been marketing its no-calorie version of namesake Pepsi to counteract Coca-Cola’s fast-growing Coke Zero.
Last year, the Purchase, N.Y.-based company sidelined its top brand from the world’s biggest advertising spectacle for the first time since 1987. Pepsi had been a perennial advertiser but opted out of the game to shift spending to its “Pepsi Refresh Project,” which pays for community projects.
Pepsi also plans to once again advertise snack brand Doritos, and for a fifth year will air ads created by fans.
The company will air six 30-second ads total, three for each brand.
It declined to say how much it will spend on the ads. Commercials typically come in 30-second blocks — which sold this past year for between $2.5 million and more than $3 million.
Fans will make all six commercials and select two ads to air for each brand, while company executives will select the remaining ad for both Pepsi MAX and Doritos.
Submissions will be accepted from Sept. 27 through Nov. 15, and 10 finalists will be announced in January.
Pepsi is putting its dollars now behind Pepsi MAX, which has been around longer than Coke Zero but is a fraction of its size. Pepsi said it is selling 44 percent more Pepsi MAX since July, when it premiered a revamped version of a 1995 Super Bowl commercial. Pepsi’s “Diner” Super Bowl commercial features delivery drivers from Pepsi MAX and Coke Zero forming a short-lived friendship in a diner over music.
The drivers sample each other’s drinks and the Coca-Cola driver prefers Pepsi MAX.
By Emily Fredrix, Marketing Writer
Lashana Lynch, Eddie Redmayne Compare Notes On “The Day of the Jackal”
Lashana Lynch was running away from spies.
After playing Nomi in 2021's "No Time To Die," she was actively avoiding any role that involved working for the secret service. What part could beat a Bond girl who took James Bond's 007 code name from him?
"I was like, 'No, I'm not doing it again. That's a legacy role. That's something that absolutely should be untouched forever,'" recalls Lynch.
But then she read the character of Bianca Pullman for a TV series based on Frederick Forsyth's classic thriller "The Day of the Jackal." Bianca was also an employee of Britain's foreign intelligence agency, but the differences between the two MI6 workers appealed: While Nomi was slick, Bianca was a mess Lynch could dive into.
"I'd pushed against this world for a long time and it felt like it came right at me full throttle," she says.
No one is happier that she jumped on board than Eddie Redmayne, who plays the Jackal, the myth-like murderer for hire. Her "versatility is insane," he says, adding that Lynch even suggested the perfect song for the theme, Celeste's "This Is Who I Am."
"The Day of the Jackal" updates Fred Zinnemann's 1973 movie, starring Edward Fox as the cravat-wearing killer hired to kill the French president.
Redmayne's version inherits the gentlemanly style of Fox, living a life of jet-setting quiet luxury, funded by getting away with murder through ingenious devices, clever disguises and flawless planning. Bianca is the intelligence officer and arms expert who will stop at nothing to find him, much to the discomfort of her co-workers and family.
Lynch and Redmayne are also producers on the show, which is airing on Sky in the U.K. and debuts Thursday on Peacock. They didn't spend much time together on set,... Read More