14531: BHM 2019—AT&T Has A Dream During Black History Month.

AT&T’s Dream In Black 28 appears to be an evolution of the annual 28 Days promotion with a bigger production budget, calling up a bunch of Black celebrities.

9109: Queen-Sized Coverage.

Not sure why these ads appeared as consecutive pages in the latest issue of Essence magazine, as the messages are selling two different lines of makeup—although the images appear to have come from the same photo shoot. Maybe Queen Latifah is being used for cross-cultural marketing.

8500: The Skinny On Diet Pepsi Can.

The Associated Press reported on the controversy sparked by the new “skinny” can from Diet Pepsi. The soft drink company declared the can was created in “celebration of beautiful, confident women.” Meanwhile, the We Inspire campaign celebrates beautiful women who don’t show off skinny cans, so to speak.

Diet Pepsi ‘skinny’ can stirs up big controversy

By Sarah Skidmore, AP Food Industry Writer

Diet Pepsi has introduced a new “skinny” can for Fashion Week, but some critics are giving it a big, fat “no.”

The can is a “taller, sassier” version of the traditional can that the company says was made in “celebration of beautiful, confident women.”

PepsiCo Inc. presented the new can at New York’s Fashion Week, which began Thursday. It will be available nationwide in March.

The National Eating Disorders Association called the company’s comments “thoughtless.”

Libby Copeland summed up many of the criticisms in an article for Slate.com: “Same old story — aspirational, looks-oriented advertising with a thin layer of faux-empowerment on top.”

7993: Beauty Queen.

Queen Latifah was part of P&G’s My Black Is Beautiful campaign—and now she’s declaring, “I feel beautiful…” with Pepsi. Look for her to appear in the Dove Real Beauty propaganda soon.