For decades, the cola wars have advanced less through argument than through ritual, with each brand reinforcing its place in culture by repeating the same symbols until they felt immovable. Pepsi’s Super Bowl 60 commercial, The Choice, disrupts that certainty by starting from a place of shared cultural understanding. A polar bear, long associated with wintertime cola nostalgia, takes a blind taste test and unexpectedly chooses Pepsi Zero Sugar over Coca-Cola Zero Sugar.
The act itself is simple, almost mundane, yet the meaning attached to it is anything but. Rather than celebrating the choice, the film lingers on its emotional aftermath, as the bear struggles to reconcile what he tasted with what he believed. In a category where loyalty is often inherited rather than examined, the bear’s discomfort becomes a metaphor for consumers who have never truly tested their preferences, only repeated them.
Turning Rivalry Inward
Instead of escalating the rivalry outward, Pepsi redirects it inward, transforming a competitive moment into an internal reckoning. The bear’s existential crisis unfolds through therapy sessions led by director Taika Waititi, an Academy Award winner who also cameos on screen as the bear’s therapist. The device adds humor, but more importantly, it reframes switching brands as a moment of self-reflection rather than defiance.
Set to Queen’s “I Want to Break Free,” the narrative leans into the emotional language of liberation, positioning the taste test as an awakening rather than a provocation. The arc resolves not in confrontation but in acceptance, culminating in a Coldplay concert kiss-cam scene that turns private doubt into a shared cultural release. The message is understated yet deliberate: choosing differently does not mean losing one’s place in the crowd, and, more importantly, alludes to a global meme from 2025, compounding a genius play.
Data Beneath the Drama
While the film unfolds like a short cinematic comedy, its premise is grounded in data that the brand is eager to foreground. Pepsi has stated that in 2025, taste tests conducted across 34 markets found that 66 percent of participants preferred Pepsi Zero Sugar. According to the company, that preference has contributed to 30.8 percent growth in the zero-sugar cola category, positioning the ad as a dramatization of an existing shift rather than a speculative claim.
Notably, the commercial never pauses to explain these figures. Instead, the blind taste test operates as a narrative shorthand for them, allowing the data to function as gravity rather than exposition. The bear’s reaction stands in for millions of similar moments, reinforcing the idea that preference, when stripped of labels, can defy expectation.
Craft as Positioning, Not Ornament
Pepsi’s emphasis on how the ad was made carries strategic significance. Although the polar bear is a CGI creation, the brand has been explicit in highlighting the human craft behind the character, from performance nuance to visual execution. This emphasis lands at a moment when Coca-Cola has increasingly experimented with AI-driven creative for recent campaigns, making Pepsi’s focus on human-led artistry feel less technical and more philosophical.
By underscoring creativity shaped by people rather than automation, Pepsi aligns itself with authorship and intention, subtly weaving cultural sentiment about authenticity into its brand message. The result is a film that feels intentionally made rather than procedurally generated, reinforcing the emotional credibility of the story it tells.
Why the Timing Matters
The zero-sugar segment represents a rare opening in an otherwise entrenched market, where legacy offers less insulation and taste becomes a more persuasive battleground. Pepsi’s campaign recognizes that vulnerability and uses it to shift the conversation away from heritage and toward experience. The question it poses is not why one brand is better than another, but how many choices are made without ever being reconsidered.
At the same time, the use of a culturally loaded mascot ensures the story travels beyond the Super Bowl broadcast. The polar bear’s identity crisis is designed for conversation, remixing, and debate, extending the campaign’s relevance across social platforms and cultural commentary.
A Quieter Provocation
The Choice does not attempt to declare an end to the cola wars. Instead, it introduces the destabilizing idea that loyalty may be less fixed than it appears, and that a single moment of unfiltered experience can be enough to unsettle it. By allowing a polar bear to confront that realization on the industry’s biggest stage, Pepsi reframes rivalry as introspection.
The provocation is subtle but persistent. Sometimes the most effective challenge is not to argue louder, but to invite someone to taste again and sit with what that choice reveals.
