Two new Diet Pepsi ad campaigns rev up

New campaigns for Diet Pepsi in Canada and the US are launching. For the US they are going to continue on with making the Diet Pepsi can personified as a "star", a la the Super Bowl commercials from earlier this year featuring P Diddy and Jackie Chan. This time they will appear beside Carmen Electra and Kevin Dillon. Supposedly, this is considered humorous - follow this link to one of the print ads.

The Canadian campaign features folks on the street who are asked if there's anything they'd like to have back from their youth.

Responses include a Flock of Seagulls haircut, painted-on designer jeans, and a van decorated with paintings of scantily clad women. The wish is always granted but the results prove a disaster. In the first case, a tennis player can't see a serve zinging toward his head because his hair is obscuring his view.

In the second, another Diet Pepsi drinker is proudly sporting a pair of skin-tight designer jeans—alas, they're so tight and stilt-stiff that he falls down while trying to sit in a chair after meeting a client. He ends up clutching a bed headboard while his wife tries to extricate him from his demon denims.

Yet another Diet Pepsi consumer, this one driving a testosterone-fueled van, is seen dropping off his young children at various activities. Needless to say, he elicits dirty looks from lots of soccer moms along the way. Eighties pop tunes serve as the soundtrack for the campaign, and at the end of each spot, the consumer says, "Nah, I'll stick with my Diet Pepsi."

It seems, from the descriptions at least, that Canada's campaign has a much better chance at being humerous. Although I have to wonder why anyone would wish they had their Flock of Seagulls haircut again. Eeep.