In the battle of ridiculous partnerships and marketing gimmicks, here is a new useless idea that Pepsi thinks is one of their “greatest projects”. Pepsi collaborated with Shaquille O’Neal, the famous Basketball player to put a Pepsi Mini in his shoe. Yeah, you heard that right – a can of Soda in a sneaker.

The last trend I heard that wildly caught on in the shoe partnerships era was the Air Jordan’s by Nike with Michael Jordan’s jumpman logo. That was cool.. everyone was suddenly wearing them (Including my husband). But if I were to ask around and see who would be interested to “snap a photo to win sneakers with an ugly Pepsi logo with a can of soda in it”… I am not sure if people are going to be going as ga-ga over it as Pepsi would imagine.

Here are 3 reasons why I feel this campaign is a major #facepalm fail:

(a) No one wants to associate sugary unhealthy drinks with fitness: Let’s get real. If you want to be associted with athletes and fitness, you are not drinking a high calorie, 32gms of a sugary drink. This is just dumping Pepsi’s brand value towards the dark abyss of “trying too hard to fit in”. Why don’t you continue to build your brand by assocating with KFC’s watch Netflix and enjoy the guilty pleasures of life instead?

(b) No one wants to drink a beverage out of a person’s shoe!?! Like WTF! Umm, firstly no one is drinking a hot can of soda from their own shoe. I can think of a lot of innovative things I might want to hide in the sole of a shoe – A can of Soda would not be one.

(c) I think making fun of someone who is very “tall and big” is just too tone deaf in today’s age. I have no clue why a super star like O’Neal would agree to this. Stating that Shaq’s shoe size of 22 is the only one that would fit a Pepsi Mini…just makes me want to erk at this information. I mean if someone is making fun of the fact that I am too short and let’s put a mini can next to me to compare sizes, I am going to be a rage ball.

Pepsi is literally the old grumpy uncle saying inappropriate and ridiculous stuff that annoys you to your core. If this was not annoying enough, watch Pepsi try to “be cool” by sharing how fresh their soda is. (PS: Add 100 facepalms). Pepsi sure as hell ain’t opening happiness, maybe for this poor attempt is opening annoyance.

Good job Pepsi, You shot yourself in the foot.