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How brands are celebrating Back to the Future Day

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It's October 21st 2015, which any self-respecting 80's cinema fanatic will tell you with no small amount of enthusiasm is the date Marty McFly arrives in the future in Back to the Future 2. Of course, this isn't the first time we've caught up with a 'future' envisioned by a piece of entertainment (I recall once watching a Bugs Bunny cartoon where Elmer Fudd ventured forward in time to 1997 and there were actually flying cars), but it is almost certainly the most high profile thus far. So, you might be asking yourself, will ad land be taking advantage of this bizarre, Generation X pop culture one-shot? Of course it will.

Almost every major brand under the sun originally featured in the film seems to be jumping on the McFly bandwagon

Almost every major brand under the sun originally featured in the film seems to be jumping on the McFly bandwagon (the character, not the boy band), with many even piggy-backing on the fake products used by Michael J Fox's character. No, Ford haven't decided to knock up a flying concept car for the occasion, and the elusive Mattel hoverboard remains a thing of fantasy (unless you happen to work for Lexus), but then the film's imagining of the future/present was always a little tongue-in-cheek (“Jaws 19” indeed). Here we'll be running through a few similarly comic marketing parallels between Back to the Future 2's 21/10/15 and the actual 21/10/15.

Uber

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For one day only, Pepsi Max partnered with Uber to give London-based BTTF fans the ride of their lives in a DeLorean to celebrate the second film's 30th anniversary. To commemorate the iconic film, a select number of DeLoreans were be on hand between 10.00am and 3.00pm on October 21 to offer free rides to Londoners, with cans of Pepsi Max on hand for the journey of course. Consumers simply had to enter the promo code “PEPSIMAX” into the Uber app to unlock the DeLorean icon, giving them the chance to ride in the iconic car.

Ford

Time Travel Made Easy – 2015 Flux Capacitor

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In the film, many of the futuristic cars featured happen to have been produced by Ford. Whether or not this was down to clever product placement or the fact that Ford cars happened to be particularly affordable in the mid-80's is irrelevant, because either way, the company has decided to utilise it's connection to the BTTF franchise by creating a mock video for a flux capacitor (the iconic three-pronged injection system that made time travel possible in the films) upgrade for their flagship Fiesta and Focus models.

Nike

The Power-Lacing Nike MAG Shoes from Back to the Future 2

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The self-lacing Nike MAG boots seems rather quaint and silly in retrospect, but that didn't stop the brand from releasing a legitimate copy of the fake footwear in 2012, only without the technology that made it so desirable in the first place. So effectively, they were expensive eyesores. Needless to say, it didn't exactly sell like hot cakes. Nike designer Tinker Hatfield (excellent name) however, did say his team was working on a self-lacing version of the shoe to be released by the end of 2015, but we haven't heard anything from him in months so I wouldn't get my hopes up.

Universal

Jaws 19 Trailer

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The studio that actually produced the BTTF franchise has obviously decided to get in on the action by releasing a brand new anniversary box set of the trilogy in time for the October 21. In order to promote the box set, the company has released a fake trailer for Jaws 19, which runs through Jaws 5 through 18 (the last real one was Jaws 4) and is actually pretty funny. Unfortunately however, it also helps us remember that Jaws 2 through 4 actually happened, which is a minor tragedy.

Toyota

Diner – Back to the Future presented by Toyota Mirai

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Toyota might not have been featured that heavily in the original film (though a pick-up truck did appear briefly at one point apparently), but the company has created perhaps the most obvious homage to the BTTF franchise by actually employing the trilogy's stars Michael J Fox and Christopher Lloyd to promote their new Mirai model. The Mirai runs on hydrogen fuel cells, which isn't quite up there with the garbage-powered engines featured n the film, but is at least a vaguely tangible link. There are three teaser ads for the Mirai by Droga5 as part of the “Fuelled by Everything” campaign, the most notable of which features Lloyd and Fox discussing which predictions the film got right, and acts as a preview for a five-minute video set to debut later today!

Pepsi

The Future is Now – Pepsi Perfect

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Pepsi Perfect, the fake drink from the film that supposedly contains “Added vitamins,” has actually been given a limited release in the US, though the drink inside is reportedly just your bog-standard, sugar-laden Pepsi Cola. 6,500 limited-edition bottle have been made, retailing for a rather hefty $20 a pop! They will be sold online today, but earlier this month, New York Comic-Con attendees were also given the chance to win a set of bottles either by dressing up as Marty McFly or by competing in a "Wild Gunman" contest. Pepsi is advertising the bottles with the spot above, featuring robots, flying cars and, of course, big hair. The ad was created by Davie Brown Entertainment (the same agency that created and integrated the fictional Pepsi Perfect product in the movie back in 1989) along with production company Stun Creative.

Mercedes

Mercedes-Benz TV – Happy Back to the Future Day

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Even though (to my knowledge at least) they didn't appear in the film at-all, Mercedes have launched not one, but three Back to the Future themes videos to celebrate Back to the Future Day. It's a little bit pandering to be honest, but I decided to include it anyway because the video above features a self-walking dog. And I'm a sucker for dogs in hilarious situations.

Benjamin Hiorns is a freelance writer from Kidderminster in the UK who loves the Back to the Future trilogy (even the third one), but still doesn't like the idea of self-lacing shoes. What's wrong with velcro?

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