Pepsi enlists Lindsay Lohan to make ‘Pilk’ happen

Source: YouTube/Pepsi

In Mean Girls, Gretchen Wieners tried to make “fetch” happen, now the movie’s star Lindsay Lohan is trying to make “Pilk” happen.

In a new advertising campaign, Pepsi is trying to get people to combine the soft drink with milk to create “Pilk”.

They have Ms Lohan on board to help get the message out there and have thrown in a bunch of references to the 2004 hit movie, Mean Girls.

“We saw @lindsaylohan having #PilkandCookies so we had #PilkandCookies,” Pepsi wrote on Twitter.

In the promotional video, Ms Lohan is seen pouring some Pepsi in a glass and then adding in some milk.

“That is one dirty soda,” she remarks after taking a sip.

Tweet from @lindsaylohan

What is a ‘dirty soda’?

Pepsi’s chief marketing officer, Todd Kaplan, said mixing milk and Pepsi has been a “secret hack among Pepsi fans” for a long time, CNN reported.

However, this isn’t a brand new invention. The “dirty soda” became a trend on TikTok and has been a thing for quite some time.

Mixing milk and Pepsi was seen on the hit show Laverne & Shirley, which first aired back in the 1970s.

The dirty soda became wildly popular in Utah, where there is a pretty big Mormon population. Back in 2012, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints clarified that the church’s doctrine does not prohibit caffeine, only hot drinks and alcohol.

The dirty soda isn’t just milk and soft drink – there have been several iterations.

Vice reported in 2016, that Mormons in Utah became hooked on mixing syrup with some kind of soft drink.

Swig, an American chain that offers the “dirty soda”, has several dirty combinations to try – some include puree, others go with vanilla or coconut cream.

In 2021, pop star Olivia Rodrigo shared a picture of herself holding a Swig cup and it became a TikTok trend to make the dirty soda.

The dirty soda on TikTok received mixed reviews – some loved it, others hated it.

It seemed those taking part in the trend were more inclined to mix their soft drink with some sort of creamer.

Admittedly, Pilk isn’t so wild when you think of similar drinks, like the spider – ice-cream mixed with soft drink.

Downing Pepsi and milk

One person on Twitter said they decided to take on the “Pilk and Cookies” challenge with their partner to “gross each other out”, but they ended up enjoying the mix.

“Whole family looked at me like I’m crazy but it’s so good,” another person said on Twitter, sharing a picture of the Pilk and a chocolate chip cookie.

Now, people on TikTok are trying Pilk too and admittedly the Pepsi campaign persuaded me to give it ago, well, kind of.

Taking the flat Coke Zero that has been sitting in my fridge for about a week, I mixed in some milk.

I was instantly transported back to my childhood, when my parents would make me a spider in the summer.

Admittedly, it’s pretty good. It’s not something I would crave, but it’s sweet and creamy.