ATLANTA — Two teams unexpectedly struck a sugary truce on Wednesday for the Super Bowl, but the goodwill looked wobbly.
PepsiCo, in a surprise marketing stunt tied to this weekend's Big Game, briefly placed a statue of its founder Caleb Bradham beside a life-size bronze statue of Coca-Cola founder John Pemberton, located outside the World of Coca-Cola in downtown Atlanta. The spot is near where Super Bowl pre-game activities are taking place, ground zero for dueling marketing by the ferociously competitive cola brands.
In a quick, stealth photo shoot, Pepsi made it appear the statues were about to clink glasses of their respective colas.
Coke, which hadn’t been given advanced notice, apparently played along with its archrival.
Pepsi tweeted “Hey @CocaCola thanks for being such gracious hosts for #SBLIII this week. We agree #TogetherIsBeautiful so we’d like to get our founders together for a celebratory cheers to declare a temporary #ColaTruce for the day. See you at @WorldofCocaCola soon!”
“We are going to welcome them with a Coke and a smile,” Coca-Cola spokeswoman Kate Hartman said.
By then the statue had been taken away. On a return run, Pepsi apparently felt like it got the cold shoulder. It tweeted: “Hey @CocaCola we swung by but it looks like you weren’t into having us over today…that doesn’t feel very #TogetherIsBeautiful.”
The hashtag is a reference to a new Coke TV commercial highlighting different animated people coming together. It is slated to air just before Sunday's game.
New York-based PepsiCo is an official Super Bowl sponsor; Atlanta-based Coke isn't. In recent weeks Pepsi unleashed a blue wave of advertising in Coke's Big Red hometown. Coke responded with a football-themed exhibit at the World of Coca-Cola, plans to light up its nearby headquarters in red and funding for free admission for a month at the nearby National Center for Civil and Human Rights.