Pepsi sent this to Robert Farago of The Truth About Guns after one of their eagle-eyed fans sent them a tip about Pepsico sponsoring Gabby Giffords and Mark Kelly’s anti-gun gab-fest at the Aspen Ideas Festival.
It seems, taking their note on its face as valid and accurate, that Pepsico’s sponsorship of Giffords and Kelly’s Americans for Responsible Solutions was a great deal more limited than we initially believed.
For this we are grateful and cheerfully extend our apologies for being wrong on Pepsi’s level of support.
While we aren’t pleased that Pepsico supported AGS in any fashion, they clearly aren’t the money source behind AGS.
We think we’ll open a Gatorade to celebrate.
From TTAG:
Dear Mr. Farago,
Thank you for sharing your concern stemming from our participation in last summer’s Aspen Ideas Festival.
For background, each sponsor of the Festival is offered the chance to underwrite one evening as a part of overall sponsorship benefits. The evening that PepsiCo put our name on was an event in which journalist Andrea Mitchell interviewed Gabrielle Giffords and Mark Kelly about their lives since Ms. Gifford’s shooting. Other than to have our logo and name attached to that particular evening session, we have no relationship to Ms. Giffords or to her organization, Americans for Responsible Solutions.
I can further share that PepsiCo has never supported groups that either advocate gun control or oppose hunting.
I hope this information is helpful. Thanks again for taking the time to contact us.
Sincerely,
Michael Madden
Consumer Relations
I am SOOOOOO glad to know this! I have already lost five pounds for want of DORITOS!! I’ma go out and buy a bag RIGHT NOW!
Whew!
Ok I’ll open up another Pepsi greetings from Wis. And Iam carrying !!
Things I love about the GSL blog…
1. Cutting edge news that isn’t available on other main stream media.
2. Well researched factual reporting on gun and civil rights topics.
3. “No fear” reporting of the truth, regardless of the wrath offered up by powerful newsmakers.
3. The integrity and guts to admit mistakes and correct errors when they find them.
Thank you!
That’s good to know. I was trying to decide if a)that was a real issue and b) rc would be an acceptable swap In the event it was. Coke tastes horrible to me.
One G2 … down the hatch!
Thanks for the timely updates, John!
Corporations, especially large ones, tend to funnel money to both parties, going back and forth in amounts depending upon which is in majority.
I have a hard time believing that Pepsi hasn’t funded the Democrat party.
Andrea Mitchell advocates gun control regularly. So does MSNBC where she works.
Pepsi advertises too.
And there is Obama. Pepsi CEO invited to the White House? Mmmmm mmmm mmmm. And “hunting”. ??? Really?? I’d be careful about offering Pepsi too much credit here. See “logos”.
I remember in the “preinternet” days, The NRA magazine pointed out that the then, Pepsi Cola Bottling Company, supported Handgun Control,Inc.
If I am wrong sorry to stir things up, If correct it needs to be told.
You’ll see Pepsi banners up at the Knob Creek Machine Gun Shoot, as well – Pepsi doesn’t specifically sponsor that event, either.
OK,NOW I UNDERSTAND,PEPSICO ONLY GOT A LITTLE BIT PREGNANT.