After watching Michael Jackson’s Pepsi Generation cut of Billie Jean from 1984 you can see right away they really do not make ads like this anymore. Pepsi had just switched gears that year with The Choice of a New Generation campaign and Jackson was at the top of the world, coming off the record breaking success of Thriller.
They brought in Beat It director Bob Giraldi to shape the ad and Jackson even re-recorded Billie Jean with different lyrics just for Pepsi. The commercial opens with a kid on the street dressed like Michael, doing his moves with friends.
Then the real Jackson shows up with the Jackson 5, and suddenly the groups are dancing together in the street. That kid was Alfonso Ribeiro, who years later would play Carlton Banks on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. On that show, he often made fun of himself imitating Jackson’s moves, which gave the scenes a funny tie back to this Pepsi ad.
The deal behind the ad was massive at the time. In 1983, Pepsi signed Jackson for five million dollars, which was called by the Guinness Book of World Records “the biggest commercial sponsorship deal” ever between an artist and a company. It clearly worked for both sides because later they came back with another deal worth ten million during the Bad album years.
Director Bob Giraldi said Jackson wanted to be in control of the details. Giraldi said: “Michael was very much involved in the execution of everything, from the choreography to the location scouting. He really knew what worked.” He would later direct the Jackson 5 in another Pepsi spot where they performed live together.
Not everything went smoothly though. During one shoot in 1984 a stage effect went wrong and Jackson’s hair caught fire. At first he kept on dancing because he did not know what had happened until a friend rushed over and pulled him down to smother the flames.
His longtime makeup artist Karen Faye said: “I never saw anything like that in my life. This was someone I knew and he was on fire. All his hair was gone and there was smoke coming out of his head.”
