In a now-infamous 2017 commercial that aired during that year’s Super Bowl, Kendall Jenner handed a police officer confronting furious protesters a can of Pepsi.
The backlash of the ad, which aired as Black Lives Matter protesters clashed with law enforcement across the country, was swift and brutal. The tone deaf clip was overwhelmingly criticized for trivializing racial discrimination and police brutality, leading to Pepsi pulling the ad and issuing a public apology that was itself shredded by critics.
Now, Amazon’s home security subsidiary Ring, may have finally dethroned Pepsi’s disastrous ad as the biggest Super Bowl marketing disaster in recent history, in a debacle that ended with the company canceling a controversial partnership with an AI surveillance company in an apparent attempt to save face.
During last weekend’s Super Bowl, Ring aired an ad to show off a new function, called “Search Party,” which allowed Ring to access devices across an entire neighborhood to find lost pets.
The expensive ad massively missed the mark, accidentally implying that Ring cameras are creating an “Orwellian” surveillance network that goes far beyond lost pets. Furious customers started disconnecting and even reportedly destroying their Ring cameras, refusing to be part of a dystopian network of internet-connected spy cameras.
“I think (the commercial) surprised a lot of Americans by revealing just how powerful surveillance networks backed by AI have become,” ACLU senior policy analyst Jay Stanley told USA Today. “That power may be applied to puppies today, but where else might it be applied? Searches for people wearing t-shirts with certain political messages on them?”
The timing couldn’t have been worse, as Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents continue to round up civiliansacross the United States, triggering widespread panic and fear.
There are signs that Ring is paying attention. On Thursday, roughly four days after the ad aired, Amazon announced it was canceling its widely-criticized partnership with surveillance company Flock, a firm that makes footage from its connected devices available to local and federal police and enforcement agencies like ICE.
“Following a comprehensive review, we determined the planned Flock Safety integration would require significantly more time and resources than anticipated,” Ring wrote. “As a result, we have made the joint decision to cancel the planned integration. The integration never launched, so no Ring customer videos were ever sent to Flock Safety.”
Where the latest announcement leaves contested claims over Flock handing over private surveillance footage to federal immigration agents, including ICE, remains to be seen — but the optics certainly aren’t great as Ring continues to pick up the pieces following its disastrous Super Bowl ad.
“Cool, still never buying a Ring, especially after all this,” one furious Reddit user wrote in response to the latest news.
More on the ad: Ring Boasts About Power to Surveil Entire Neighborhoods
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