Pepsi MAX & Suicide – a bad combination in any language.

A series of print ads for Pepsi MAX ran in Germany recently and have caught the attention of many online, including myself.

It is my understanding that the purpose of advertising is to sell something – a thought, a cause, a charity, an event, a product – in other words, to get people to part with their money or their time, which some say is money anyway. These ads have prompted me, as well as a good number of others, to spend time to comment on them. So in that respect, they’re successful.

But let’s step back a moment and look at the current global environment in which these ads are appearing.

World economy in turmoil. Global job loses and threat of a depression, with no foreseeable turnaround for the next 18 months or more. The holiday season and the inevitable spike in depression that accompanies it, fast approaching.

Maybe it’s not the best time to be selling a can of pop by promoting suicide as an alternative to loneliness and isolation.

Just a thought.