The glove, the shoes, the shades: Michael Jackson’s Pepsi campaign of the early ‘80s helped spread the iconography that endeared fans around the world to the superstar until his untimely death last month.

But in the world of advertising, the late pop singer’s $5 million deal with Pepsi in 1983 was a landmark integrated campaign that laid the blueprint for celebrity endorsements to come.

A year after Thriller‘s release, The Jacksons were looking to break into Madison Ave. and asked Jay Coleman, founder of Entertainment Marketing & Communications International to find them a deal.

Initially, Coleman pitched The Jacksons to Coca-Cola, but the company considered them “niche” and refused to meet his $5 million asking price. “They saw it as an ethnic marketing opportunity,” says Coleman. ”I think they just believed if you wanted to reach black consumers, you had a black star. If you wanted to reach white consumers, you had a white star. They really didn’t understand the fact that Michael was truly a cross-over artist.”

Coleman brought the idea to Pepsi CEO, Roger Enrico, who wanted to reposition the brand as “The choice of a new generation”. Coleman had no trouble convincing him that Michael Jackson embodied the idea’s young, energetic spirit. The tough part was getting Pepsi to pay $5 million for the privilege ($1 million for each brother).

“Key to getting that done was showing Pepsi that this alignment with the Jackson family and Michael had the opportunity to give them multiple touch points,” says Coleman, who pitched doing commercials, a tour sponsorship, in-store displays and putting Jackson’s face on their cans.

Once the deal was signed, Pepsi turned to BBDO, New York creative director Phil Dusenberry. The agency shot two commercials, which became the setting for one of Adland’s most notorious on-set incidents. During a concert scene an ill-timed pyrotechnic explosion set Jackson’s hair on fire in front of 5,000 screaming extras. The mishap inspired the title of Dusenberry’s memoirs, Then We Set His Hair On Fire.

In the book, Dusenberry writes that when Jackson saw the storyboards, the star had three things to say: “One, I don’t like the storyboards. Two, I don’t like the song. Three, you can’t show my face.”

In lieu of a jingle, Jackson and Dusenberry rewrote the lyrics to “Billie Jean”. More difficult was convincing Jackson to show his face. Though he agreed, on the day of the shoot The Jacksons refused to remove their sunglasses and an argument erupted.

“I have no way of knowing this – but I think they weren’t quite sure they wanted to be so accessible and this was a way of maintaining an edge,” says Bob Giraldi, who directed the commercials. “This is the first time The Jacksons were really inundated with corporate America. This is really white, corporate America – advertising. I think they wanted to make a little bit of a statement.”

Coleman believes Jackson’s reluctance to show his face was more about theatrics than politics. The creative caveat forced the agency to instead focus on the now-iconic aspects of Jackson’s personae: the one glove, his dancing feet, his sunglasses. “It turned out to be genius,” he says. “You got to see that glove in the dressing room, you got to see his costume, you got to see his little feet doing the moonwalk. And then at the end, wow! There it is: it’s Michael. It worked brilliantly.” Q

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