We believe in branding. Your logo, your namespace, and your textual perception is everything online, and it is the only thing that matters when you are a popular company propagating your brand. We were horrified to learn Pepsi recently changed their semiotic logo and bottle in favor of a strange, smiling, grinning, yawning set of variations on the Obama-like red-white-and-blue theme. Here is the old, favorite Pepsi Logo we all know and love:
Here are the new Pepsi logos. Notice how the logo’s white “mouth” changes style and shape to entice you into drinking?
The new Pepsi “smiling” logo overwhelms the can.
Some on the internet claim the style of the new Pepsi bottle is semiotically erotic in that the design of the plastic between the cap and the logo looks like the head of a “wrinkled penis” — and when you think about people unscrewing the bottle cap to press their lips against that “plastic Pepsi penis” to swallow the sweet nectar — you begin to feel sick to your stomach enough to wish again for a Coke Blak.
It doesn’t make any sense for Pepsi to change their logo — unless they’re feeling pinched by shareholders and made desperate by Coke’s stoic, and unchanging, logo — but if PepsiCo wanted to make a wholesale change, they should’ve gone the Cocaine and Pimpjuice route instead of picking the grinning penis path.
Hilarious, David!
That new logo does seem like it’ll take some getting used to!
The Pepsi website has an alert about this that takes you here -
http://www.pepsi.com/falserumoralert.php
Woah! That seems to be something else altogether!
Hi Dananjay!
That alert is fascinating — I thought it was going to deny the “Plastic Pepsi Penis” — but it does not! SMILE!
It is sort of disgusting, isn’t it, Dananjay? I know they say sex sells… but… Pepsi has a pretty young audience…
Yuck! I just asked a coworker to check out the image and tell me if anything struck him. He said, “You mean other than they look like penises?”
Oh, my! It’s pretty bad, Gordon, that a quick look provides the same, sensual, result.
Ick!
Yes, David, it leaves little to the imagination.
Not to mention, what is up with “mtn dew”? are they into txting at the office?
Dananjay –
Do you think PepsiCo KNEW they were designing a plastic penis? Was there no one on staff that held up a hand and said… “Waitaminute…”
How does something that suggestive get by the internal censors. What is an “on purpose?”
Yeah! They’ve seemed to have leapt off the deep end, Gordon! What silliness! Why chop down the mountain? I guess they do want the non-vowel speakers, eh?
I do sort of like the Sierra Mist misty logo. It’s a sad brand, but the new branding is sort of interesting.
OH YUK
Especially when you consider the age group (young teenagers) that makes up their main marketing target group.
That is exactly the yuk point, Nicola — they’re trading down to kids and asking them to sip from THAT bottle… oofff! What a ridiculous, avoidable, mistake!
David,
Chances are that they knew exactly what they were doing. I wonder why mountain dew wasn’t packaged similarly.
Looks like a sure shot recipe for disaster, David. How could the company be so dull?
In the USA, Dananjay, Mountain Dew is focused at young, active, boys while Pepsi is more directed at females. Generally… Coke is considered the “man” drink because it is less sweet than Pepsi the “woman” drink.
Is it possible they wanted this controversy, Katha? “Oh it isn’t a wrinkled penis just like Mike Huckabee’s bookshelf cross wasn’t a cross…” It seems like a losing proposition to me…
I am so glad I don’t drink Pepsi!!!
You are not enticed by the new Pepsi bottle, Katha? Are you a Coke gal or a Mountain Dew honey?
Bleh.
No way David. The concept seems so passionately goofed-up.
I am more of a “Coke gal”, “Mountain Dew” is too sweet for me!
I seriously miss “Canada Dry” and “A & W Root Bear” here…
Coke is very good, Katha. Do you like Ginger Ale?
Yes! Ginger Ale, Dr. Pepper – love it!
I am not much of a “soda” person though!
I’m not much of a soda person, either, Katha — especially now that I’m off caffeine. It’s hard to find a diet soda that is non-caffeinated.
Yes David – I agree.
I remember taking a road trip with a very good friend of mine once, she used to start her day with a can of Moutain Dew – like having a bed-tea…it seemed her magnificent yellow lab (Buddy, the best possible co-traveler I have ever had)used to get upset about it, forget about me – but to no avail!
Her one day consumption of soda would be equivalent to my one week drinking. I tried to talk her out of it…but failed miserably.
Heh! Soda can be a big addiction, Katha, and Mountain Dew has the highest amount of caffeine available in the mainstream soda market.
Did anyone notice the logo is not a smile, but a ‘vertical smile’. In other words the new logo looks like a vagina.
Hi John –
Funny! Some say the new Pepsi logo suggests the Obama logo, but I think it’s pretty wild imagining the “wrinkled” penis thrusting into the vagina logo!