Kendall Jenner Pepsi Ad: Commercial’s Producers In Legal Hot Water With San Francisco PD For Using Logo


Kendall Jenner’s Pepsi ad may be facing legal troubles with the San Francisco Police for using the department’s logo in the shooting of the controversial video.

TMZ reports that the San Francisco PD is in talks with the City Attorney to determine whether the producers of Kendall Jenner’s Pepsi commercial video have crossed the legal line in using the department’s emblem. As per City Attorney’s ordinance, the police logo cannot be used by the public, either for commercial or personal purposes.

Photos of the police emblem were spotted after behind the scenes footage of Jenner’s Pepsi commercial were released online. It would be difficult for the ad’s producers to deny that the “San Francisco Police” emblem was used in the controversial video since it garnered a lot of views.

Kendall Jenner’s Pepsi ad has been quite a PR nightmare for both the beverage company and the reality star. Not long after the commercial premiered (March 3), social media outrage ignited, with angry netizens describing the Pepsi commercial as tone deaf and insensitive.

Those who raised their voices in protest against Pepsi’s innocuous ad claimed that it trivialized the struggles and sentiments of minority groups. Mocking tweets and memes proliferated the web as people continue to send the clear message that they don’t approve of how the brand capitalized on social and political issues relating to the Black Lives Matter movement.

For those who haven’t been keeping up with the Pepsi ad controversy, the commercial shows Keeping Up With The Kardashians reality star Kendall Jenner ripping off her blonde wig (clearly presented as a gesture to rid oneself of white privilege) and then joining a band of racially-diverse protesters as they march on. They were suddenly stopped in their tracks by a line of police officers so Jenner decides to remedy the situation by approaching one of the police officers and then handing him a can of Pepsi. A tense moment passed before the officer decided to take a sip. The crowd erupted in cheers.

The Pepsi ad generated much controversy on account of how far removed it is from reality. Angry netizens fired a torrent of sarcastic tweets and posts, writing that if one gets assaulted by the police, what he or she needs to do to get off scot-free is to hand him a can of Pepsi.

Martin Luther King’s daughter, Bernice, tweeted something to that effect and got more than a hundred retweets and almost 300,000 likes for it.

A day after the ad premiered, Pepsi pulled the commercial and then released an apology admitting that they “clearly missed the mark” and “did not intend to make light of any serious issue.” On Thursday, however, the commercial’s creative team and Kendall Jenner refused to make statements after repeated requests for comment. According to TMZ’s sources, Jenner wasn’t aware of the ad team’s vision, and by the time she read the script there was nothing else for her to do but to go along with it.

What baffles many is how the Kendall Jenner Pepsi ad got off the ground in the first place, as has been pointed out by USA Today.

Lisa Skrilloff, president of consulting firm Multicultural Marketing Resources, shared her thoughts on the issue.

“How can it be that a group of people could be totally oblivious to the reaction that a commercial like this would generate. I have been following commercials like this since the 80’s, and this goes to the top of the list… There should have been someone who would have stopped it.”

Do you think the producers of Kendall Jenner’s Pepsi ad should be held legally accountable for using San Francisco Police’s emblem in the shooting of the video? Sound off in the comments section below.

[Featured Image by Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images]

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