By the late 1940s, black sales representatives worked the Southern Black
Belt and Northern black urban areas, black fashion models appeared in
Pepsi ads in black publications, and special point-of-purchase displays
appeared in stores patronized by African-Americans. The company hired
Duke Ellington as a spokesman. Some employees even circulated racist
public statements by Robert W. Woodruff, Coke’s president.
The campaign was so successful that many Americans began using a racial
epithet to describe Pepsi. By 1950, fearing a backlash by white
consumers, Pepsi had killed the program, but the image of Coke and Pepsi
as “white” and “black” drinks lingered.
