Arby's Made a Commercial for Pepsi, and It's Great

Arby’s had a problem. In October, the fast-food chain had already finalized its advertising for the year when it realized it had forgotten to feature Pepsi in two commercials, as it had promised. So it asked its Minneapolis-based advertising agency, Fallon, to do something to placate PepsiCo. “People would notice if we just shoehorned a Pepsi product into a commercial,” says Matt Heath, creative director at Fallon. “So we said, OK, what if we didn’t do it like that?”

Instead, Heath came up with a 30-second spot that features nothing but a cold glass of fizzy, bubbling Pepsi and an angry-sounding voiceover by actor Ving Rhames. “Arby’s messed up and forgot about the second commercial,” Rhames explains. “So here it is. Pepsi, cool, refreshing, and goes great with Arby’s sandwiches and other Arby’s foods. Arby’s: We have Pepsi.”