Pepsi’s Polar Bear Super Bowl Ad Ignites Debate With a Bold Pop-Culture Wink
Pepsi didn’t wait for kickoff to start the Super Bowl conversation. In the days leading up to Super Bowl LX, the brand rolled out its big-game spot “The Choice,” and within hours it was already doing what every marketer secretly wants: getting people to argue loudly in public. On the surface, it’s a classic cola-war stunt dressed up like a comedy short. Underneath, it’s a very modern internet move—part nostalgia, part rivalry, part “did they really just reference that?” energy. The result is a commercial that doesn’t merely sell a drink. It stages a cultural moment, then watches the timeline decide whether to clap, cringe, or do both at once.
The opening sets the tone immediately: a blind taste test, old-school Pepsi Challenge style, shot like a clean little experiment that’s about to go off the rails. A polar bear—an image most people instinctively connect with Coke’s holiday universe—steps into the spotlight as if he’s about to defend a lifelong identity. It’s an instant visual joke: Pepsi is borrowing your competitor’s mascot-coded vibe and asking, “What if he switched teams?” The bear is blindfolded, the cups appear, and the entire premise hangs on one deliciously simple question: what happens when labels disappear and the taste does the talking?
Then the twist lands. The bear chooses Pepsi Zero Sugar. Not “maybe,” not “I’m not sure,” but a confident pick that instantly turns his face into a full-blown existential crisis. The commercial plays it like a life-changing revelation: imagine thinking you’re one person for your whole life and then learning you’re… a different person who prefers a different soda. It’s funny because it’s ridiculous, and it’s ridiculous because the ad commits to the drama. Pepsi doesn’t treat the choice like a minor preference. It treats it like a personality plot twist with emotional fallout, the way the internet treats everything from celebrity breakups to a stranger’s hot take about pizza.
That’s where the spot’s comedic engine really kicks in: the bear needs help processing what just happened, so he goes to therapy. The therapist is played by Taika Waititi—also the director—who shows up with that signature “I’m taking this seriously, which makes it funnier” delivery. The bear on the couch is the kind of image that doesn’t need explanation. You can practically hear every viewer thinking, “I can’t believe this is real,” and that’s the point. The ad turns a taste test into a full identity spiral, then doubles down by treating it like a genuine breakthrough moment.
Waititi’s therapist character doesn’t play it like a quick cameo either. The scene is staged like a comedic confession booth where the bear tries to reconcile a lifetime of assumed loyalty with a new reality. It’s the kind of joke that works because it’s universal. Everyone has had at least one moment where they realized they’ve been defending something out of habit—music, sports teams, phone brands, coffee preferences—only to discover the world is not obligated to confirm your bias. Pepsi takes that psychology and inflates it into a silly, shareable storyline: the bear isn’t just switching soda. He’s switching identities in front of a national audience.
As the bear leaves the therapy session, the commercial transforms into a mini “self-discovery” journey. He wanders through scenes where everyday people are casually enjoying Pepsi Zero Sugar, and the bear looks at them like they’ve cracked a code he wasn’t allowed to read. It’s staged with exaggerated longing, like the soda is not a product but a lifestyle he’s been locked out of. That’s where Pepsi sneaks in the product story without making it feel like an ad within the ad. The bear’s emotional confusion becomes the reason you see the can, the reason you see the sip, the reason you see the “this is what people actually choose” theme.
Music seals the vibe. The spot leans on Queen’s “I Want to Break Free,” which is not subtle, not quiet, and absolutely not accidental. The song isn’t background decoration—it’s a comedic headline. The bear is breaking free from the old narrative, the old label, the old assumption. Pepsi is essentially turning the cola rivalry into a liberation anthem, and it’s so extra that it becomes the joke. The Super Bowl is built for this kind of theatrical nonsense: big swing, big song, big visual, and a message that’s easy to repeat even if you only half-watched it while grabbing snacks.
Midway through, the commercial introduces the emotional solution to the bear’s crisis: another bear. This second polar bear shows up like a friendly guide from the “Pepsi side,” offering not just a drink but a kind of acceptance. It’s a surprisingly effective storytelling move, because it turns the punchline into a tiny relationship arc. The first bear isn’t alone anymore, and the story shifts from “I’m confused” to “okay, maybe this is who I am now.” That sounds absurd, but it’s exactly how internet identity works: one moment you’re loyal to something, the next moment you discover a new preference, and suddenly you’ve joined a new tribe without filling out any paperwork.
And then comes the scene that pushed the ad from “funny cola war” into “wait… did they really?” territory. The finale lands in a concert arena setting, complete with big-screen jumbotron energy. The bears appear on the screen in a kiss-cam style moment—sweet, comedic, and instantly recognizable as a nod to a viral Coldplay jumbotron incident that dominated online conversation in 2025. Pepsi doesn’t spell names, but the structure is so similar that viewers immediately connected the dots. The ad winks, and the internet—being the internet—winks back, then starts arguing.
That’s where the reaction split hard. Some people treated it like exactly what Super Bowl commercials are supposed to do: be timely, be meme-friendly, and feel like they live in the same world as the audience. For them, the kiss-cam nod was just modern satire, the same kind of cultural recycling that happens in late-night monologues and TikTok parodies. The logic is simple: if it was viral enough to become part of the public conversation, it’s fair game as a reference point. To that crowd, Pepsi didn’t “cross a line,” it simply understood the assignment.
But others saw the exact same scene and didn’t laugh at all. Their argument wasn’t about whether the ad was clever. It was about whether a brand should turn a real-world scandal into a punchline in order to sell soda during the biggest television event of the year. The Coldplay moment involved real people and real fallout, which means the reference lands differently depending on how much weight you attach to the original story. Even a “soft” parody can feel like a hard jab when the internet remembers the humiliation factor. For critics, the joke wasn’t bold—it was opportunistic.
The speed of the backlash debate was almost as important as the debate itself. Modern Super Bowl ads don’t live only on game day anymore; they live online first, where every frame gets paused, reposted, captioned, and dissected. That environment turns small references into big headlines. One person notices the kiss-cam resemblance, another makes a clip, another adds context, and suddenly the ad isn’t just a soda rivalry comedy. It’s a social argument packaged as entertainment, and people start choosing sides the same way they choose Coke or Pepsi: loudly and with emotion.
Pepsi, of course, knows this ecosystem. The brand has a long history of positioning itself as the challenger, the disruptor, the one willing to poke the cultural bear—literally, in this case. “The Choice” isn’t designed to be politely admired and forgotten. It’s designed to spark conversation, and conversation is often messy. In a Super Bowl advertising landscape where dozens of brands fight for the same 24-hour attention window, being “the one everyone is debating” can be as valuable as being “the one everyone loved.” Controversy isn’t always planned, but it’s rarely unwelcome.
At the same time, the ad’s craft is what makes it stick even for people who dislike the reference. The pacing is tight, the premise is instantly readable, and the polar bear’s emotional acting—yes, acting—does real work. The therapist cameo adds personality without stealing focus, and the soundtrack gives the ad a sense of momentum. Most importantly, Pepsi’s product message is woven into the narrative instead of stapled on at the end. The bear chooses Pepsi Zero Sugar in a blind test, and that choice becomes the story’s spine. Everything else is comedic packaging around that core claim.
There’s also a deeper marketing point hiding under the jokes: Pepsi is leaning into the idea that labels shape perception. The blind taste test premise is a way of saying, “If you remove branding bias, people may choose differently than they expect.” Pepsi even frames this as a phenomenon—basically a polite way of calling out how powerful brand loyalty can be. In other words, the ad isn’t just mocking Coke. It’s mocking all of us for how emotionally invested we get in things as small as soda. The polar bear is the audience, dramatized.
So what made the whole event special isn’t simply the ad itself, but the way it unfolded as a real-time pop culture mini-drama. First came the early release and immediate sharing. Then came the laugh reactions and the “this is hilarious” posts. Then came the “hold on, is that a Coldplay reference?” detective work. Then came the split: clever satire vs. bad taste. In the span of a day, “The Choice” became more than a commercial. It became a conversation about how advertising uses the internet’s shared memory—and whether some memories should stay off-limits.
By the time Super Bowl night arrives, Pepsi’s spot will already have lived an entire life online. That’s the new reality: the Super Bowl ad isn’t just a broadcast moment anymore, it’s a rolling cultural product that gets consumed, remixed, judged, defended, and memed before it ever hits the big screen. Pepsi managed to do what brands chase every year: make people feel something and say something. Whether the kiss-cam nod is remembered as fearless timing or a misstep will depend on which side of the debate wins the long-term narrative. But one thing is already clear—Pepsi didn’t just show up to play. It showed up to start something.
