Arby's and Pepsi have a contractual agreement where the fast-food chain features the soft drink in two ads a year. Sounds simple enough: Just end a couple commercials with a glass of Pepsi next to an Arby's menu item, and presto. But this year Arby's apparently forgot to fulfill its contract and ran only one such ad, according to The Wall Street Journal. Oops.
In an effort to make up for it, the company had its ad agency create a last-minute commercial to satisfy Pepsi. The result is a 30-second spot lampooning the mistake. It features nothing but a voiceover and a long shot of a pint of ice-cold soda. "Arbys: We have Pepsi," the ad concludes.
On Monday, Arby's posted an apologetic tweet to promote the spot.
The company also posted the following on YouTube, along with the video: "We love you Pepsi. You’re like a meat to us."
"The idea was to stay consistent with the rest of the Arby's work -- keep it simple, real and focused on the product ... even if it's not exactly a sandwich. It's 24 seconds of a Pepsi just sitting there," Matt Heath, of the Fallon ad agency, told HuffPost. "It'd be hard to mess that one up. We're excited about it."
And Pepsi seems totally on board with the whole thing.
“We applaud Arby’s unconventional approach to marketing and when they came to us with this idea, we thought it would be a fun, creative way to highlight our partnership,” Roberto Rios, the chief marketing officer for PepsiCo’s food service division, said in a statement, per the Journal, while Heath added, "Pepsi seems like a good dude. I'm sure he can see past this hiccup."
We can't wait till "The Daily Show" gets ahold of this.
Note: This story has been updated to include comments from Matt Heath, who worked on the ad for Arby's.
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