"Yesterday afternoon, Dr Pepper posted an image to Facebook depicting human evolution, and now everyone is yelling at one another. This has been a monumental waste of everyone's time. So let's talk about it.
How to start an inane internet flame war in three easy steps:
1. Be a major company with significant social media exposure. Your product needs to be loved by a large and diverse consumer market.
2. Run an advertisement on your facebook page featuring "controversial" subject matter. Extra points for politically/racially/religiously charged material.
3. Wait for flaming to ensue.
Kraft recently did this by supporting gay marriage (with rainbow Oreos). Chick-Fil-A did something similar by denouncing gay marriage (with sandwiches). Now, Dr Pepper has done it by portraying a can of its soda as a key step in the process of human evolution.
Except it really hasn't.
There's an important distinction separating Dr Pepper from Kraft and Chick-Fil-A: the soda company's tongue is planted so firmly in its cheek here that it's practically poking through the other side. This is not about Dr Pepper pronouncing its pro-evolutionary stance, it's about selling soda with some high-concept ad-design.
If that analysis seems obvious to you, congratulations. You are capable of dissecting the subtleties of an ad campaign (which, let's face it, really aren't that subtle) that has thrown a considerable segment of the internet into one of the dumbest shouting matches in recent memory.
As of this posting, Dr Pepper's facebook update (titled "The Evolution of Flavor") has been shared over 2,500 times and liked over 25,000 times." i09.com
How to start an inane internet flame war in three easy steps:
2. Run an advertisement on your facebook page featuring "controversial" subject matter. Extra points for politically/racially/religiously charged material.
3. Wait for flaming to ensue.
Kraft recently did this by supporting gay marriage (with rainbow Oreos). Chick-Fil-A did something similar by denouncing gay marriage (with sandwiches). Now, Dr Pepper has done it by portraying a can of its soda as a key step in the process of human evolution.
Except it really hasn't.
There's an important distinction separating Dr Pepper from Kraft and Chick-Fil-A: the soda company's tongue is planted so firmly in its cheek here that it's practically poking through the other side. This is not about Dr Pepper pronouncing its pro-evolutionary stance, it's about selling soda with some high-concept ad-design.
If that analysis seems obvious to you, congratulations. You are capable of dissecting the subtleties of an ad campaign (which, let's face it, really aren't that subtle) that has thrown a considerable segment of the internet into one of the dumbest shouting matches in recent memory.
As of this posting, Dr Pepper's facebook update (titled "The Evolution of Flavor") has been shared over 2,500 times and liked over 25,000 times." i09.com
Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to
corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things.
Romans 1:22,23
