The scandal that occurred in 2017 severely affected the reputation of Kendall Jenner and the entire brand.
Over the past 14 years, the Kardashian family has dominated pop culture and built a brand worth $2 billion, but most of their biggest career successes began source from scandal. Even the girl who is considered the most secretive in the family – Kendall Jenner – was once involved in a scandal that made public opinion angry and upset.
In 2017, as soon as she first started her career, she got a huge advertising contract with Pepsi. However, as soon as the ad was released, Kendall and the brand were strongly criticized by the online community for its unrealistic and misleading content. In this video, Kendall appeared in the line of protesters and happily gave the police a can of Pepsi. Kendall’s actions are said to be disrespectful to people of color who stand up for equality in America.
In the Pepsi commercial, Kendall gave the can of carbonated drink to the police amid enthusiastic cheers from those around him.
The promotional video created fierce controversy on social networks when compared to the image of a black girl standing in front of a powerful armed force.
After only 1 day, because of receiving too many dislikes from viewers, Pepsi was forced to remove the ad and issue an official apology. Representative model Kendall Jenner was also criticized by people for accusations of racism and disrespect for people of color. This is also a rare case in advertising history because in less than 1 day, the video was taken down because it was boycotted by the public.
Even though they recreated the protest scene, Kendall and the surrounding actors held soda cans and danced as if they were holding… a festival.
When he saw a line of police standing nearby, Kendall innocently took out a can of water and gave it to him
Although Pepsi quickly apologized immediately after releasing the video, the main character in the campaign, Kendall, disappeared without a trace. Many people believe that Kendall deliberately ignored public opinion and waited for everything to calm down and then appeared as if nothing had happened. However, after half a year, the audience’s reaction not only decreased but also became very intense and out of control. The public even asked Kendall to retire.
At this point, female lead Kendall appeared with a tearful apology video. Even though she was advised by her sister Kim Kardashian to apologize immediately to appease the public, Kendall still chose to stay silent to handle the crisis. A late apology could not save Kendall’s image and caused her to be called out every time racism was mentioned.
Kendall’s apology video was ridiculed by people because she spoke up too late
She sobbed and said she didn’t want to hurt anyone
In 2020, the Black Lives Matter movement broke out again after the shocking death of George Floyd. This time, even though she posted a post supporting the protest, Kendall was still criticized for being fake and fake because of the scandal 3 years ago. Many protesters even applied Pepsi and Kendall’s naive approach of giving water to the police, but what they received in return was only more brutal repression.
When Kendall participated in the protest, she was fiercely criticized for the scandal that year
Many protesters imitated Kendall’s actions to mock her
Black people gave water to riot police to prove: “Nothing will change”
Source: Buzzfeed, NewYork Times,…