Product: Pepsi.
Title: Samurai.
Ad agency: directed by the award-winning Tarsem Singh, best known for his commercials (including Levi's, Coca-Cola, Polaroid, Smirnoff, Vauxhall, Perrier, Lexus, Nike and Microsoft), music videos and his big screen directorial debut The Cell (2000).
First impression: Jennifer Lopez, Beyonce and David Beckham? It must have cost Pepsi several arms and legs.
Idea/storyline: the commercial opens with a spectacular view of downtown Hong Kong (if you are watching the full-length version, which is showing only in cinemas and on the internet) where two kendo experts - pop divas Lopez and Beyonce - are practising their moves. At the end of the session the pair are summoned (in what sounds like Thai) to the Pepsi Bar for their next mission. After speeding through the streets of Hong Kong on motorbikes, they arrive at a nightclub, watched by a figure shrouded in semi-darkness. A fight ensues after a gangster is rude to them and as the foray ends, with only the dynamic duo left standing, the enigmatic stranger approaches, revealing himself to be David Beckham. Then (as you would have seen on the ad's television version) Lopez turns to the footballer and says: 'You are ...' Beckham utters a smug 'yeah', but she cuts in, '... sitting on my purse', before sashaying off with Beyonce.
What the ad man says: Salman Amin, chief marketing officer of PepsiCo International, says, 'We at Pepsi have always committed ourselves to bringing consumers the best there is to offer from the worlds of football and music. This time we have brought them together in a combination we believed would create a fantastic piece of activity. We believe we have been proven right and now consumers will have the opportunity to see it for themselves'.