Did Pepsi change its design to support Palestine?
Claim
The Israeli company PEPSI has changed the design to avoid the boycott and wrote Palestine. Do not fall for this deception. Continue the boycott of both PEPSI and COKE brands
Rating
Explanation
Palestine-based Hamas militants attacked Israel on 7, October 2023 and since then Israel has been bombing Palestine. Some countries support Israel and some Palestine. There are multiple posts shared asking to boycott products of Israel.
One such post shows the package of Pepsi products with drawings that reflect Palestinian heritage. This image is shared to claim that the Israeli Pepsi company has changed the design in support of Palestine to avoid the boycott. The post further mentions “Do not fall for this deception. Continue the boycott of both PEPSI and COKE brands”, with the hashtag ‘boycottpepsi’. Some of the posts with such a claim can be seen here and here.
What is the truth?
When reverse-searching the viral image we found that the viral image is a clipped version of an image posted by the Digital Alfaaz Facebook page a few days back. This Pakistan-based Facebook page has captioned the image as “Pepsi Gaza introduces new designs to its products, showcasing Palestinian culture and heritage”. Similarly designed Pepsi product was found posted on an Instagram page. However, these are not the earliest posts of the viral image.
Another Facebook video posted by Dragon Studios dated 16, August 2023 is found carrying a video that shows the design of the product package with the heritage drawing and the after results of it with the product.
The company Dragon Studios is all about video production, motion and VFX, and digital marketing and is based in Palestine. And their website lists Pepsi as one of their clients.
We found multiple posts dated August 2023 carrying the viral image along with another Pepsi product with a similar package. An X user with the username ‘V Palestine’ is found posting two images of Pepsi, one with a blue-coloured package and the other with a black-coloured package. Both these products’ package reflects the heritage drawing. The post is dated 17, August 2023 and is captioned “Pepsi Gaza introduces new designs to its products, showcasing Palestinian culture and heritage”.
The image of the Pepsi product with heritage drawing package is doing rounds on the internet at least since August 2023. And the war was started on 7, October 2023. This proves that the Pepsi package reflecting Palestinian heritage was not introduced after the war to support any country but was seen before the war.
With further search, we found multiple articles dated 14, August 2023 Palestinian websites reporting that Pespsi organised a campaign ‘Pepsi Taste Challenge’ in June and July 2023 and received 58% of votes in favour of them. To celebrate it and to thank Palestinian citizens, Pepsi launched two of its products with a package that reflects Palestinian heritage, reported Mada News.
When searching the official website of Pepsi, we found a press release stating their support to associates and communities in Israel and Gaza. This shows that Pepsi is not in support of one specific country.
Conclusion
It is found that as a part of a campaign ‘Pepsi Taste Challenge’, Pepsi launched two of its products with a new look that reflects Palestinian heritage to thank their Palestinian customers in August 2023. The Israel-Hamas war started on 7, October 2023.
Hence, the claim that Israeli company Pepsi has changed the design to avoid the boycott and wrote Palestine on it is completely false as the product was introduced before the start of the war.
