P. M. BRIEFING : Pepsi Quiz Fizzles Out in Atlanta
Pepsi Cola has apologized to Atlanta residents for a job recruitment quiz that belittled their city as home to rustics who prefer fatback to fine dining and get their kicks by cow-tipping.
The apology came in a full-page newspaper advertisement Thursday in the form of an open letter to Atlanta residents. It was signed by Ron Tidmore, president of Pepsi-Cola South, who described himself as a native Southerner “angry and embarrassed” by the characterization.
The quiz was distributed to business students during a Pepsi employment recruiting trip to Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill.
It was the creation of a Pepsi employee trying to demonstrate the relative merits of living and working in Atlanta, where the Coca-Cola Co. has its headquarters, and Pepsi’s corporate home in the New York City suburb of Purchase, N.Y.
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