DO YA WANNA SPEND
THE REST OF YOUR LIFE SELLING PEPSI (TM)?
Nikki Craft
Autumn, 1987
 These are indeed strange times we live in. We have seen values and ethics twisted and coopted in every way imaginable by greedy, insatiable corporations. For instance I recently bought a pair of Reebok running shoes and found the Reebok name advertised a total of sixteen times including the inside and bottoms! Corporations should be paying us to advertise, yet we have been forced to pay exorbitant prices for their logos on our belongings. We have all been forced, or volunteered, to become walking billboards.
We delude ourselves if we believe there is any free choice in this relentless intrusion onto our bodies and into our psyches. Of course the obvious solution is to refuse to buy anything with the company name on it, but if it can't be avoided, and sometimes it can't, there are somethings we can do.
One of the most revolutionary acts, it seems to me, we can perform now is to deface, or should we say enhance, our own property. We can remove their corporate graffiti and obscenities off our bodies: rip the labels off, scribble or creatively cover (by any means necessary! ;-) their corporate logos and company names with strips of sparkles or Marks-O-Lots (TM) or our own artwork.
Last month here in Oshkosh we had a Pepsi-sponsored bike race that prompted me to write a letter to the Oshkosh Northwestern, our only local newspaper. The editor first refused to print it because of my use of "white poison" instead of "sugar". He thought it was slanderous, so I compromised. Then he said the letter was too strident, so I even covered up my anger, made it nicer, and added a little joke. Finally, the editor accused me of having "something against" Pepsi because I didn't list other corporate names.
Of course I could have listed IBM, American Express, Ford, Cheverolet, Chrysler, General Motors, Rockwell International, Bechtel Corporation, McDonald's, Burger King, Penthouse International L.T.D., Reynolds Tobacco, AT & T, Merrill Lynch, and Reebock and Union Carbide, but they did not sponsor the race. I name them here because I have no special prejudice against Pepsi. I simply hate the growing arrogance of many corporations.
But, since the Oshkosh editors could not be satisfied with my compromises, I suspect their real reason for suppressing this letter was local business interests. Pepsi, it turns out, has a bottling company here and sponsors many local civic events. The Oshkosh Northwestern also co-sponsors another bike race with Pepsi. Pepsi has in the past, withdrawn from sponsorship of the race. They could do it again. We all have learned too well that it doesn't pay to bite the hand that feeds you.
As a result of tax breaks all of us are at the mercy of corporate "benevolence". There is a national trend for the government, media and too many individuals to drop to their knees before corporate priorities, and these days there is inadequate criticism of corporate maleficence. This makes what happened at our Oshkosh bike race a metaphor for others across the country. Here is my response to what happened:
The Northwestern ran this ad and I've added the Pepsi ad on the runners. It looked very strange in 1987, but now people have become so used to being walking advertisements.
"Dear Editor: The bike race brought to Oshkosh last week by Pepsi Cola was a great spectacle and it provided exercise and discipline for those taking part. If that's all we say about the race we are over looking something important! Watching the cyclists as they spun down Main Street was thrilling, but it seems strange this sporting event would be sponsored by Pepsi.
"Pepsi Cola is a giant pillar in a junk food culture with its merchandising of chemicals, dyes, caffeine and sugar (white poison). Clean drinking water and nutritious food, not Pepsi, make a fine-tuned athlete, while so-called soft drinks and other junk foods destroy the integration of the mind and body. It is subterfuge, and in fact, I believe it should be false advertising, to imply that these young people have gotten where they are by drinking this dyed, flavored sugar water!
"During the race we were bombarded with Pepsi blared over the loudspeaker systems; we saw Pepsi everywhere we looked. These fine athletes, and others, deserve better than to have Pepsi and other corporate advertising plastered across their chests, feet and heads. The slogan Pepsi was posted hundreds of times, on each of the triangle race flags and strung around the whole downtown area on both sides of the street .
"Yet another Pepsi logo was shamelessly paraded on the door of a souped-up white Chevy. While two motorcycles led the race, working to assure the safety of pedestrians and bikers, this gratuitous Chevy actually threatened the public safety. Zooming directly in front of the cyclists it revved its motor, gushed obnoxious exhaust fumes and peeled rubber at every turn.
"For non-thinkers and corporate sycophants, indeed this car made a marvelous display. This Pepsi-Chevy continuously spewed its noxious carbon monoxide into the faces and delicate lungs of these young athletes. With each cloud of dark smoke some of us saw also the deadly hot air expelled by the corporate arrogance of our times.
"When more of us care more for the well-being and health of participants such events will need no corporate sponsor. Certainly sporting events will not be incongruously sponsored by soft drink, beer or cigarette companies whose main priority is to promote their corporate name and increase their corporate profits. --Nikki Craft July, 1987" |
It's time to look more thoughtfully and critically at the corporate involvement in our lives. No matter how sweet it may be we can't afford to swallow self-serving corporate propaganda that is sugar-coated as civic concern. When John Scully from Pepsi was being recruited by Steve Jobs for the top position at Apple Computer he was asked a question. The Oshkosh Northwestern, and the media in general, might well take note. Particularly the media that opted not to print this letter because its content is critical of corporate America might take note. The question Steve Jobs asked Scully was: "John, do ya wanna sell sugar water for the rest of your life or do you want to change the world?"
Sincerely,
Nikki Craft
Citizens for Media Responsibility
P.O. Box 67l
Oshkosh, Wisconsin 54902
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