The bear sits in an office that looks like every therapist's office you've ever seen—neutral walls, that particular kind of chair designed not to offend anyone, soft lighting that's meant to be calming. Taika Waititi sits across from him in thick-rimmed glasses, notepad in hand. The bear's having a full breakdown. He just took the Pepsi Challenge—blind taste test, no labels—and chose Pepsi Zero Sugar over Coke Zero. His entire identity is crumbling. Waititi leans forward with perfect deadpan timing: "Tell me about your mother."

That's how Pepsi's Super Bowl LX spot opens, and it's smarter than most brands would've been brave enough to attempt. Directed by Waititi for PepsiCo Content Studio and BBDO, "The Choice" takes Coke's most recognizable mascot and gives him an identity crisis set to Queen's "I Want to Break Free." The bear wanders empty city streets at night—that particular 3am loneliness where every diner window looks too bright and too far away at the same time. Eventually another Pepsi-loving bear finds him, offers understanding instead of judgment. They end up on a jumbotron kiss cam, callback to last July's viral Coldplay concert moment that dominated feeds for weeks.

The spot scored 728 on iSpot's likeability index when the Super Bowl average sits at 641. Eighth most-liked ad of the night. But none of that captures why this actually works.

Most brands would've played this for cheap laughs. Make the Coke bear look stupid, turn him into a punchline, cut to product shot. Pepsi and Waititi did something harder—they made him sympathetic.

The bear's not an idiot for preferring Coke all these years. He just never questioned it. Brand loyalty felt like identity, and now that he's tasted both without the label doing the work, he's stuck with that gap between what he thought he wanted and what he actually prefers. Waititi knows restraint. The therapy scene is one line and a cut. The bear walking alone has no voiceover explaining his crisis, just Queen playing and silence between the notes. When another bear offers a Pepsi on a dark street corner and there's that moment of recognition—you're not alone, other people figured this out too—it lands because nothing before it tried too hard.

Using Coke's polar bear—official mascot since 1993's "Always Coca-Cola" campaign—was always going to dominate the conversation. It's one of advertising's most recognizable symbols. Some critics argued Pepsi just made a $10 million ad for Coca-Cola because the second that bear appears, everyone's brain goes to Coke before processing anything else.

The execution handles it. The spot doesn't just steal the bear—it gives him agency and treats the choice as genuine struggle instead of obvious victory. The data backs the premise. Pepsi ran blind taste tests across 34 markets in 2025, and 66% of participants preferred Pepsi Zero Sugar to Coke Zero Sugar. Pepsi won every single market, including Atlanta—Coke's actual hometown. The bear represents what happens when you strip away decades of brand associations and just go with what your taste buds tell you.

There's subtext here that makes this land harder than it would have landed a year ago. Coke spent the last two years getting absolutely destroyed for using AI in their Christmas advertising. Both 2024 and 2025 holiday spots used generative AI instead of human creators, and the response was brutal. People called the ads soulless, empty, devoid of the warmth that made the originals work.

When Pepsi shows up with Taika Waititi—Oscar winner, actual human director with a distinctive voice—the contrast writes itself without being stated. Gustavo Reyna, Pepsi's marketing VP, made one comment in press materials: "If there's something we care about, it's the craft and creativity of our people and partners." That's all you need. Coke looks like they're cutting corners with algorithms. Pepsi looks like they still invest in people who know what they're doing.

The original Pepsi Challenge from 1975 was pure rational comparison. Take the test, realize Pepsi tastes better, switch brands. Functional and forgettable. The 2023 Super Bowl version with Ben Stiller and Steve Martin went too meta, winking at the premise until the joke wore thin.

This one plays it straight, which is what gives it weight. The bear walking those empty streets alone, the neon diner signs reflected in windows he's not going into, the way another bear just appears and offers a Pepsi without saying anything—those beats feel earned because Waititi trusted the audience to follow the emotion without spelling it out.

Pepsi Zero Sugar grew 18.1% in volume last year while Coke Zero grew 4.8%. They're climbing from 1.4% market share against Coke's 4.6%, so this ad isn't defending position—it's trying to create momentum in a category where most people's choices run on autopilot. Waititi gave them an emotional frame for reconsidering a decision people make without thinking.

The bear isn't switching sodas. He's being honest about who he is when the marketing gets stripped away. That's what good advertising does—makes the choice feel like it means something beyond the product itself. Whether anyone actually switches or just appreciates the craft is a different question, but at least Pepsi made something worth watching.