The archive · Advertising · Marketing decision · 2023
Pepsi turns Shaq's size into the pitch for its Mini can with a Skee-Lo remake
Pepsi remade Skee-Lo's 1995 'I Wish' as 'I Wish I Was a Little Bit Smaller' and let the biggest spokesman alive sell its smallest can.
Pepsi
What it had to solve
People still love cola, they are just more choiceful about how much they drink, and Pepsi's Mini can was positioned for that moment — yet the competition dominated the category, so the small can needed its own way to be heard.
How it works
Tiny is trendy, even in soda: people still love cola, they are just choiceful about how much. Pepsi's Mini can was perfectly positioned to seize that moment, but the competition dominated the category, so the small format needed a voice loud enough to break through.
Pepsi's answer leaned on what cola drinkers already love — hip-hop, humor and nostalgia. The brand flipped the script on Skee-Lo's 1995 hit 'I Wish,' bringing back the original artist alongside NBA legend Shaquille O'Neal to record a new anthem, 'I Wish I Was a Little Bit Smaller.'
The premise did the persuasion: even someone living as large as Shaq knows Pepsi Mini is just the right size. Shaq's own mythology — the bigger-than-life star — became the argument for choosing less, and the reworked song turned a portion-size message into music people wanted to hear.
No sales figures accompany the archive entry; the case stands on the idea that the biggest possible spokesman made the smallest can feel like the smart choice, and the work was preserved in the D&AD awards archive.
Why it lands
- The casting inverts the product's apparent disadvantage: the most larger-than-life pitchman argues for the smallest can.
- The song remake bundles hip-hop, humor and nostalgia — the three shortcuts the brief names for reaching cola drinkers — into one piece of culture.
- The premise carries the argument: if someone living as large as Shaq calls Mini the right size, choosing it stops feeling like a compromise.
- It gives a small-format product its own memorable voice instead of letting it be outshouted by the category leader.
What it did
The campaign made the can's smallness both the joke and the argument at once: a star whose persona is built on being big vouches for the tiny can, with the song carrying the idea; the work is preserved in the D&AD awards archive.
What you can take
When a small product faces a dominant rival, recruit a contrast that makes the attribute the punchline — the biggest spokesman arguing for the smallest size sells the idea in one line.
Since then
The Shaq Mini Can spot became the answer to a standing problem — how to make Pepsi's small format feel like a confident choice rather than a lesser one. It did so without an explicit product lecture: the reworked anthem and the contrast casting carried the message, and the work was kept in the D&AD awards archive.
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