Heineken Just Put Out The Antidote to That Pepsi Kendall Jenner Ad
Get the Full StoryWHAT: “World’s Apart,” a new Heineken ad that involves some frank conversations between people with differing views.WHO: Agency Publicis London
WHY WE CARE: Earlier this month, Pepsi tried to walk in step with the #Resistance, and ended up falling on its face. Hard. The company’s tone-deaf ad–which used Black Lives Matter iconography andKylie Jenner to suggest that carbonated beverages can heal America’s wounds–inspired such a seething backlash it was pulled almost instantly, and savagely parodied. It would’ve been the perfect time for Coca-Cola to step up and deliver the perfectly calibrated ad and eat Pepsi’s lunch. In truth, though, Coke had to do absolutely nothing to achieve the same result. Instead, Heineken has come along a couple weeks later with an ad that gets to the heart of political engagement in a straightforward way that makes Pepsi’s weirdly glam ad seem even more embarrassing.
The main political problem in post-Brexit UK, as well as post-Trump America, is the depth of our division. People with opposite views believe in those so vehemently that they are sure the people on the other side of each issue are almost of a different species. Making matters worse, these people from opposing sides almost never get to meet each other outside of Twitter -replies, which are among the most contentious places to be in the world. In Heineken’s “Worlds Apart” ad, complete strangers who have been selected for their political opinions, but not told what the experiment entails, are matched up and made to converse. The climate change denier meets, face-to-face, with the environmental doomsayer, and both are made to hear out their respective views. Other issues explored throughout the ad include feminism and transgender rights. This kind of heady material is impossible to fully explore in a meaningful way within the space of a beer commercial. However, encouraging actual dialogue is a thousand times more of a mature and responsible way to address our current international predicament than glamorizing, fetishizing, and whitewashing the protest movement.
via Upworthy
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