Wouldn't you like to be a Pepper too? Not quite.

So they're at it again with the Dr. Pepper Ten ads. After the controversy from 2011 about its blatant sexism, Dr. Pepper's owner, Dr.Pepper Snapple Group, is still perpetuating this message. Check it out.

I personally think people need more media literacy. While there isn't any blatant sexism in the YouTube comments that I saw without hitting the "Show More" option (although I'm sure there is some), people make comments like the following:

...Yes, I know this is image falls outside the layout of the blog, but I wanted to make sure it was legible. 

What gets me is the comment "Dont[sic] carry hate. It's only a commercial." The "#lightenupplease" is also amusing for the same reasons. I wonder if the blatant sexism in the commercials roughly 2 years ago flew over the commentator's head as well. Or perhaps they are just ignorant of seeing how it could be taken and still passing it off as "just" a commercial.

It's not just a commercial. It has social implications, which media scholars have well documented with research from the late-40s to present. I cannot accept the humor of the new ad after seeing previous commercials for Dr. Pepper Ten, especially when the message is becoming slightly more subliminal less blunt.

But mostly, I wonder what happened to the all-inclusive "I'm a Pepper!" ads that promoted diversity. Even in this ad, we see people (male AND female) of different ages, races, and circumstances coming together in being unique in their own way; they share being a "Pepper" but are all individuals. Yes, it's odd to talk about advertising in an accepting way, a way that is decent for society, but compared to recent "Pepper" representations, it is golden.

In the classic (and shorter) "I'm a Pepper" ad, which I highly recommend viewing, we see the same thing: Diversity in unity. The Dr. Pepper Ten ad strays from the previous unifying Dr. Pepper ads by separating men from women, and typically, the main characters are white men in their 30s (except this one). So much for diversity. Even in 1980 with the previous decade's love/hate relationship with feminism, women were still included. Women weren't even ostracized in the old ads.

Dr. Pepper Ten in 2013 is trying to convey the same message without being as bold as 2011's bluntness. You would think by now they would have abandoned this marketing scheme in favor of something better, but no. The marketing message is just sugarcoated diluted but is is still there for sure.

Let's get diversity back. #Notbuyingit