Pepsi Boycott: Kendall Jenner Ad Leads Consumers To Stop Buying

UPDATE: April 5 at 1:40 PM - Pepsi announced Wednesday afternoon that it would be pulling the ad, as it "missed the mark."

A PepsiCo Inc. advertisement following model and honorary Kardashian Kendall Jenner as she rapidly becomes woke drew ire from both sides of the political aisle after its release Tuesday, with some calling for an outright boycott of the New York-based beverage company’s products.

In the commercial, Jenner ditches a photo shoot when inspired by a passing group of marchers holding generic signs that read “join the conversation,” “peace” and “love.” She abruptly pulls off a blonde wig and shoves it into the arms of a visibly confused black woman working on the shoot, only to stride to the front of the protest and hand a police officer a Pepsi in a gesture of peacemaking.

Read: Donald Trump Supporters Boycott Pepsi, Macy’s, Dreamworks and Netflix

Supporters of President Donald Trump railed against the ad’s thinly veiled mimicking of recent protests against the former reality TV star and police violence against African Americans.

But much of the criticism came from Pepsi’s apparent target audience, the left — for turning the aesthetic of real-life political rallies into a way to boost revenue and whitewashing the challenges posed to African Americans protesting in the face of police.

Read: Kendall Jenner Pepsi Ad Slammed, Sparks Social Media Outrage

The boycott threats following the ad’s release were not the first Pepsi faced since the 2016 presidential election. After CEO Indra Nooyi told the New York Times at a conference that supporters of former Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton “should mourn” and that her employees were “all crying” and feared for their safety under the new administration — specifically, employees who were women and people of color — Trump supporters took to Reddit, adding her company to a list of boycotted brands.

In December, Nooyi joined a panel of executives advising Trump on economic and business-friendly policy making. Although Nooyi didn’t face much popular backlash, one of her counterparts on the council, Uber Technologies Inc. CEO Travis Kalanick, eventually left the group over calls to “#deleteuber” as a means of protesting his support of the new president.