Health Groups Target Katy Perry for Marketing Pepsi

Can nutrition watchdogs shame Katy Perry to stop marketing Pepsi?

A group of seven health organizations are going to try. They plan to run an open letter to Perry urging her to not "exploit [your] popularity by marketing a product that causes disease in your fans." The one-page ad will run in Variety. Perry is the latest target of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, which also went after Beyoncé for her $50 million Pepsi deal. In the letter, CSPI and the other organizations compare the Pepsi campaign using Perry to the same tactics that were used by tobacco companies. "Virginia Slims and other tobacco companies used glamorous celebrities and models to position smoking as hip, sexy and rebellious. Today soda companies are using you and other celebrities to convince young people that drinking soda is hip, sexy and rebellious," CSPI and the other groups wrote.