A Highly Evolved Ad Campaign

NEW YORK —  Pepsi is counting on a couple of monkeys to help it overcome Coca-Cola’s gaping lead in the global cola wars. Over the weekend, Pepsi Cola International fired its most ambitious salvo in the soft drink marketing battle outside the United States.

Its new commercial, aired in 28 markets to a potential audience of 500 million consumers, shows researchers experimenting on two chimps, giving a diet of Coca-Cola to one, Pepsi to the other. By the end of the test period, the chimp who drank Coca-Cola is making great strides, hammering pegs into the right holes, for example.

But the carefree Pepsi chimp is driving down a beach in a Jeep with several girls and a surfboard, music blaring.