SodaStream’s Sexy Miscalculation

SodaStream, some Israeli water-carbonation company, decided to take on Pepsi and Coca-Cola by running a Super Bowl commercial featuring Scarlett Johansson. The ad was explicitly framed as too scandalous for American television—which is always funny because the thing they’re selling is a kitchen appliance that makes fizzy water. But apparently having Johansson there was enough to make CBS nervous. They rejected it before it could air.

So obviously I had to see what was so offensive. And there’s really nothing there. She’s in a towel or something, making suggestive faces at the camera, doing that thing where she wraps her mouth around a straw. It’s mildly flirtatious in the way ads used to be, back when that was enough to get a reaction. But it’s not pornographic. It’s not even that bold, honestly.

What struck me is how deliberate the whole thing felt. SodaStream clearly knew NBC or CBS would reject it, and that’s the entire marketing play. The real Super Bowl commercial never airs—only the controversy does. The banned version gets passed around online, everyone sees it anyway, and suddenly people are talking about SodaStream in a way they never would have otherwise. It’s brilliant and cynical at the same time.

America’s relationship to sex in advertising is genuinely weird. We’re fine with violence, with gun ads, with beer commercials that are basically just women in bikinis, but put a woman suggestively with a straw and suddenly it’s beyond the pale. It says something about what we’re actually worried about, what actually frightens us. Or maybe it just says that network TV is run by people terrified of anything that acknowledges desire too directly.

I don’t even remember what SodaStream tastes like. But I remember Scarlett Johansson’s face and a straw, which I guess means it worked.