Neon Pepsi

Pepsi is a soft drink produced and manufactured by PepsiCo. It is sold in many places such as retail stores, restaurants, schools, cinemas and from vending machines. The drink was first made in the 1880s by pharmacist Caleb Bradham in New Bern, North Carolina. The brand was trademarked on June 16, 1903. There have been many Pepsi variants produced over the years since 1898.

The Pepsi-Cola Company became the first major American corporation to market to black communities, and it hired a team of black professionals to do the marketing.

From 1947 to 1951, Pepsi had a "special markets" team - at its height comprising 12 black men - whose job was to sell the soft drink to what was then called "the Negro market." It was not until two decades later that the rest of American business caught up and showed the same commitment to selling to black customers and hiring black employees, according to an exhibit at the Queens Museum of Art, in New York.

Pepsi's groundbreaking move was made mainly for business reasons. America came out of World War II with a booming economy, but one that was remarkably segregated along racial lines. Black community leaders were urging major companies to advertise in black newspapers, stressing that the 14 million African Americans represented a gold mine of potential customers.

Pepsi, which had been established only a few years earlier, was an underdog struggling against the giant Coca-Cola brand. Pepsi saw an opportunity, said Stephanie Capparell, author of The Real Pepsi Challenge, a 2007 book that recounts the episode.