There is no accounting for taste. (Or is there?)

Buzz creation and disruption are two popular concepts in modern marketing. It requires a great deal of creativity (and potentially some risk) to design communications that are cutting edge enough to stop consumers dead in their tracks, get them to pay attention, and entertain them to the point that they feel compelled to tell a friend about the campaign.

When marketers strive to create buzzworthy advertising, they often fail to adhere to the rules of taste. Defying the rules of taste is not a good idea for a soft drink company. Let's look at the recent Pepsi Max campaign. Although these print ads were not necessarily conceived as an online campaign, the resulting backlash -- whether Pepsis expected it or not -- most assuredly turned this campaign into an interactive marketing lesson:

I can see fit to applaud BBDO (the agency that created the campaign) for creating something edgy and visually on par with some of today's top pop and street art. But the bottom line is this: People do not take suicide lightly. I realize that this ad does not imply that suicide is funny, nor does it explicitly make light of the matter. But the question has to be asked, "How did Pepsi not know that people would be offended by this?"

Taking risks is one thing. Ignorance is another.

I cannot conclusively quantify the impact that this campaign had on people's overall perception of Pepsi. But I can say that Pepsi is at the top of the search engine results page (SERP) for a query that results in some pretty depressing content. Furthermore, people on Twitter did not find this ad amusing.

Check out this SERP for a query on "suicide advertising":

 
Many were deeply offended by this ad, and rightfully so.

Pepsi can apologize all it wants. (And it has.) But this ad is now part of its brand DNA. Some mistakes are not that easy to erase.

Key takeaways

• Be mindful when taking chances; the memory of the web is permanent.
• Some things are sacred, even if they are not sacred to you.