KO Coca Cola Company

By Mike Esterl 

Coca-Cola Co. and PepsiCo Inc. have agreed to a 30-second truce in their long-standing soda wars thanks to Veterans Day.

Coke CEO Muhtar Kent and PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi appear together in a public service announcement plugging a nonprofit that gives career transition advice to U.S. veterans--the first time officials at either beverage giant can recall their top executives joining forces in an ad.

The short video promoting American Corporate Partners was brokered by the nonprofit's founding chairman, Sid Goodfriend, a former investment banker who helped strike acquisition deals for PepsiCo before becoming friendly with Coke more recently.

"One thing that unites us is supporting our veterans," says Ms. Nooyi in the joint PSA that is being offered to television networks after being posted Monday on YouTube.

Ms. Nooyi and Mr. Kent even finish some of each other's sentences in the spot for ACP, which is funded by dozens of Fortune 500 companies and helps veterans with career transitions through in-person mentoring programs and online advice.

But there are limits to the détente. The two CEOs filmed their parts separately before the ad was spliced together. While Mr. Kent stands before a red background and toasts veterans with a red Coke bottle, Ms. Nooyi stands before a blue background and toasts with a blue Pepsi can.

But no shots are fired, even from Pepsi, which hasn't shied from playful digs at soda industry leader Coke over the years. In a Pepsi TV ad this summer poking fun at Coke's "Share a Coke" marketing campaign, a young woman retrieves a Coke bottle with the name "Larry" on it from a vending machine while her Pepsi-drinking friend wins free tickets to a concert.

If TV stations opt to run the PSA, it would also represent free advertising for Coke and Pepsi as both try to jump-start flagging soda sales. U.S. soda volumes have fallen 10 straight years industrywide, according to industry tracker Beverage Digest, as growing numbers of Americans switch to bottled water and other beverages that they view as healthier.

It's not the first time the ACP has brought together unlikely partners. Last year's Veterans Day PSA featured David Axelrod, the chief strategist for President Barack Obama's campaigns, and Karl Rove, senior adviser to former President George W. Bush.

Mr. Goodfriend says that he advised PepsiCo for more than a decade as an investment banker at Merrill Lynch and that the Purchase, N.Y.-based snack and beverage giant helped him with the 2008 launch of the nonprofit. He says Atlanta-based Coke joined ACP in 2014 after he was introduced to Mr. Kent by former PepsiCo CEO Roger Enrico, who wrote the 1986 book "The Other Guy Blinked--How Pepsi Won the Cola Wars."

Late last year, says Mr. Goodfriend, he approached Ms. Nooyi with the idea that she team up with Mr. Kent for a PSA. Ms. Nooyi gave the green light and Mr. Kent also said yes when Mr. Goodfriend approached him early this year.

Write to Mike Esterl at mike.esterl@wsj.com

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(END) Dow Jones Newswires

November 10, 2015 16:43 ET (21:43 GMT)

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