Creative Win, Brand Question Mark: What Pepsi’s Polar Bear Ad Really Achieved

Hey marketers, welcome back.

If you watched the Super Bowl this year, you probably remember that ad.

A CGI polar bear steps into a blind taste test. No labels. No branding. Just flavour. He takes a sip, pauses, and chooses Pepsi Zero Sugar over Coke Zero Sugar. Queen’s I Want to Break Free plays. An existential spiral follows. Identity is questioned. Assumptions are shed.

It’s funny. It’s polished. It’s directed by Taika Waititi.

And it’s one of the boldest Super Bowl cola ads we’ve seen in years.

But bold doesn’t always mean effective in the way brands hope.

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What Pepsi Got Right

Let’s start by giving credit where it’s due.

Pepsi’s The Choice campaign did a few things very well.

• It revived the Pepsi Challenge in a modern, self-aware way

• It leaned into humour and nostalgia without feeling dated

• It directly confronted Coca-Cola, instead of dancing around it

• It backed the message with data, citing that 66% of blind taste testers preferred Pepsi across 34 markets. click here

From a creative standpoint, this worked.

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The Social Media Buzz Was Real

Online, the campaign did exactly what a Super Bowl ad is supposed to do.

• Clips circulated widely on X, Instagram, and LinkedIn

• Marketing timelines debated whether Pepsi had “won” the cola wars

• Commentators praised the audacity of using Coke’s polar bear

• Legal and brand experts weighed in on whether Pepsi crossed a line

• The ad became a case study almost instantly

For a few days, Pepsi dominated marketing conversation.

That matters. Attention is not nothing.

But attention alone is not the finish line.

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Where the Ad’s Impact Stops

Here’s where things get more complicated.

The moment the polar bear appeared on screen, the ad’s centre of gravity shifted.

That bear is not a neutral character. It is one of the most emotionally loaded brand assets in advertising history. Decades of comfort, nostalgia, and familiarity are attached to it. Those associations are automatic.

So while the story was about Pepsi winning on taste, the emotion belonged to Coke.

Instead of weakening Coke’s brand, the ad reactivated it.

Viewers didn’t leave thinking:

• “Pepsi has replaced this symbol.”

They left thinking:

• “Coke’s polar bear is still iconic.”

In branding terms, that’s not symbolic disruption. That’s reinforcement.

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Taste Wins, But the Category Doesn’t Run on Taste

Pepsi’s argument rests on blind taste tests. And those results are real.

But cola has never been a purely rational category.

People don’t choose Coke or Pepsi the way they choose a charger or a detergent. They choose it through:

• habit

• memory

• context

• emotional comfort

No one drinks soda blindfolded in a lab. They drink it at barbecues, in movie theatres, at family gatherings, and on long drives. Branding shapes the experience of taste itself.

That’s why this detail matters:

Despite Pepsi’s taste-test wins and creative buzz, Coca-Cola still holds a 19.1% share of the U.S. soda market and remains the category leader. click here

If taste-test superiority alone changed behaviour, Pepsi would have won this war a long time ago.

It hasn’t.

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Attention vs Affection vs Behaviour

This is where the campaign’s limits become clear.

Pepsi clearly won:

• attention

• conversation

• cultural moment

But Coke retained:

• emotional ownership

• habit

• long-term preference

And there’s no evidence yet that the campaign shifted actual buying behaviour.

That doesn’t make the ad a failure. It makes it a creative success with unresolved strategic impact.

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The Bigger Lesson for Brands

This campaign is a great reminder of something marketers often forget.

Creative bravery can win headlines.

Brand power is built elsewhere.

Pepsi didn’t lose because the ad lacked humour or polish. It lost ground because it tried to borrow emotional equity instead of building new meaning of its own.

Strong brands don’t just provoke their competitors. They create worlds their competitors can’t enter.

Pepsi’s polar bear moment will be remembered.

But it may be remembered more as proof of how strong Coke’s branding still is.

And that’s the quiet irony.

Sometimes, the boldest move still ends up strengthening the leader.

-MK