Pepsi has for decades taken pokes at rival Coke in an endless array of commercials, but this time, the youth-skewing cola company really means business.
In a new ad slated to air during Super Bowl LX on February 8, Pepsi lures a Coca-Cola stalwart, a figure meant to be seen as one of the company’s popular animated polar bears, and eventually convinces the white bruin to shift his allegiance from Coke to Pepsi Zero Sugar.
“For decades, Pepsi has embraced being the challenger cola brand, yet we keep proving we’re #1 where it matters most: taste,” said Gustavo Reyna, Pepsi’s vice president of marketing, in a prepared statement. “Cola drinkers care about taste, but when they choose anything other than Pepsi, they leave taste on the table.”
Could Coca-Cola assert intellectual property and trademark rights ahead of the Big Game? If it does, such an act would cast a flag on Pepsi’s play.
The emphasis on low-calorie soda in the Big Game shows how much more reliant the nation’s large beverage companies are on drinks that consumers perceive as being better for them. Sales of “regular” Coke and Pepsi have been falling for years, but data from Circana, a market-research company, shows zero-sugar options accounted for 52% of the overall category’s sales growth in 2025. Pepsi Zero Sugar saw 30.8% growth in 2025, Pepsi says, and reached more than one million new households.
Others have tried to swipe popular ad mascots and put them in the service of a rival. In 2016, telecom-services company Sprint poached Paul Marcarelli, the “Test Man” actor who asked consumers “Can you hear me now” on behalf of Verizon for nine years. Verizon had no say over the fate of an actor who once played a fictional ad icon on its behalf, but consumers got the joke. Eventually, all was forgiven. Marcarelli returned to work for Verizon last year.
Pepsi has clashed with Coke many times over the years — and often during the Super Bowl. In 1995 and 2015, Pepsi ran commercials showing delivery drivers for Coca Cola and Pepsi coming to blows after the Coke driver tastes a Pepsi (a Pepsi Max in the latter spot) and refuses to give it back. The story takes place as the popular Youngbloods’ song “Get Together,” plays in the background. In 1996, Pepsi ran a Super Bowl ad featuring a Coca-Cola deliveryman viewed on a security camera swiping a Pepsi to the strains of “Your Cheatin’ Heart.”
Adopting the polar bears takes these long-running cola wars to a new level. Coca-Cola’s use of the Arctic creatures actually dates to an appearance in a French print ad in 1922, but the white bears first gained modern acceptance in 1993, when they debuted as part of Coke’s “Always Coca-Cola” campaign. Since that time, they have often returned to public notice around the holidays. In 2012, they offered online commentary about the ads and plays in Super Bowl XLVI — serving as part of an “alterna-cast” well before Peyton and Eli Manning started doing something similar for ESPN’s “Monday Night Football.”
Pepsi may have gained an entrance because Coca-Cola exited the Big Game several years ago. Coke left the Super Bowl ad roster in 2019 after a celebrated 11-year run, then made a brief return in 2020.
Pepsi called upon a popular director to lead its effort. Taika Waititi, known for his work in Disney’s Marvel series as well as films like 2019’s “JoJo Rabbit,” directed the commercial, which is set to Queen’s rousing single “I Want to Break Free.”
Coca-Cola rarely responds to Pepsi’s teases and jokes, at least not in commercials. But Pepsi’s mockery may have one result the soda-maker wouldn’t like: What if the polar bear appropriation spurs a return by Coke to the gridiron classic?
English (US) ·