How Michael Jackson, Pepsi Made Marketing History

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Essentially two kinds of people existed in the ’80s: Coke drinkers and Pepsi drinkers. And if you loved Michael Jackson, you had good reason to fall into the latter group.

In November 1983, one year after “Thriller” was released, Jackson (with his brothers) and PepsiCo struck a $5 million partnership that would shatter the record for a celebrity endorsement deal, link the two entities for a decade and set the bar for every integrated marketing campaign that would follow.

Jackson’s

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