Fans Call V’s Coca-Cola Ad a ‘Betrayal’ Amid Ongoing Gaza Genocide

BTS member Kim Taehyung, known to fans globally as V, has become the subject of major controversy over his endorsement of the global beverage giant, Coca-Cola Zero. Unveiled on July 31 as part of its promotional activities in South Korea, V’s association with Coca-Cola has sparked outrage among fans and activists, who have been quick to criticize the BTS member as “tone deaf” and “deeply disappointing” at a time of genocide in Gaza and the company’s inclusion on the BDS list.

In the promotional materials for the new #BestCokeEver campaign, V took to his social media accounts to reveal himself as Coca-Cola’s latest Korean endorser, effectively replacing HYBE label mates and recent recruitments, the K-pop girl group, NewJeans. While endorsements by celebrities and other public figures for big-name companies are not uncommon, the optics of V being tapped by a company at the center of controversy surrounding Israel, as well as his own muted stance on Gaza, have made his new gig a trending discussion on platforms like X.

One specific criticism leveled at the BTS member is the growing misalignment between his individual and the group’s public brand, one that was built in part on the members’ taking stances on different social issues, especially in regards to antisemitism and the Black Lives Matter movement.

In contrast, BTS has failed to express solidarity with Palestine at a time when the genocidal Israeli state is waging an ongoing and illegal assault on the civilian population. This perceived deafening silence from V, who has emerged over the years as one of BTS’s leaders in his own right, has made the endorsement “sending a double message to the global ARMY”.

Some fans have noted that V has shown interest in controversial, Western brands before, pointing to a recent incident where the idol shared a photo of McDonald’s fries on social media, apparently in a casual setting. In a reaction to that episode, the fan-run publication B-Side Magazine issued a statement defending V from accusations of cultural erasure and othering.

In V’s case, his promotion of McDonald’s at a time when the Israeli state was shelling Gaza also pointed to the idol’s selective concern for those who are “dying and being murdered far from their homes”. This time around, some of V’s international ARMYs have been particularly vocal about the hypocrisy of the idol’s promotion of a brand at the center of human rights and discrimination debates.

Why Coca-Cola? WhoProfits Reports Targeted the brand and included the drinks company as part of its index of “companies with direct business links to Israeli settlements and companies that, through their actions, significantly contribute to Israel’s violations of Palestinian human rights”.

In 2024, Coca-Cola was also forced to apologize for an ad it placed in Bangladesh, which claimed that it had “no connection” with Israel, despite operating in illegal Israeli settlements through one of its two different country-specific branches. “The ad from Coca-Cola falsely claimed that the company did not have any connection or business relationships with Israel,” a statement from WhoProfits reported, noting that the Israeli company, Coca-Cola Israel, reported that its factory is located within the Atarot Settlement Industrial Zone.”

Its activity in settlements has also been noted by WhoProfits, which reported that Coca-Cola Israel’s Tabor Winery gets its grapes from “locations in the occupied West Bank and the Syrian Golan Heights.”

The company has been a frequent target for pro-Palestine boycott calls because of its activities in illegal Israeli settlements, as well as what the boycotters have said is the targeting of the BDS movement through different defamation lawsuits. V has not issued any public statements to address or refute any of these allegations.