PTC Says Pepsi and Mars Should Stop Sponsoring Netflix’s “Temptation Island”

LOS ANGELES (April 3, 2025) – The Parents Television and Media Council (PTC) called on Pepsi and Mars to reconsider their sponsorship of Netflix’s “Temptation Island,” which includes blurred nudity, unfiltered language, and a problematic plot.

Ads for Quaker Oats (parent company Pepsi), and Kind bars (parent company Mars, Inc.) appeared on “Temptation Island.” The entire premise of the series is to surround unmarried but “committed” couples with attractive, half-naked singles who are there for the sole purpose of trying to get one or both partners to cheat.

Parents Television and Media Council Vice President Melissa Henson said, “If you were to hide cameras in a stranger’s bedroom and bathroom so you could record and watch them during their most intimate moments, you’d be arrested and society would view you as a voyeur, a creep and a pervert. And they’d be right. But when a TV producer does it, it’s ‘ground-breaking’ television.

“But it’s still voyeuristic, creepy, and perverse. It should not be tolerated or excused. And no respectable company should be willing to sponsor it.

“Yet that’s what dozens of companies are paying for when they buy time on Netflix’s ‘Temptation Island.’ We are calling on Pepsi and Mars to reconsider their sponsorship of this TV program,” Henson said.

Netflix recently brought back “Temptation Island,” a trashy reality series PTC campaigned against when it originally aired on Fox in 2001. The PTC called-out advertisers and it became so toxic to sponsors that eventually Fox had to drop the series from its line-up.

Of the four couples featured on the show, three of the men cheated on the woman they arrived with. Their sexual exploits were recorded on hidden cameras and delivered to audiences to consume. Unlike sexual content in a scripted series, these are not “simulated” sex acts. This is the real thing.

“Children might not be watching ‘Temptation Island,’ but that doesn’t mean children won’t be affected by its toxic messages. Programs like this can and do affect the culture and the cultural norms children grow up with. Programs that normalize and celebrate infidelity will harm children. And companies like Pepsi and Mars shouldn’t be supporting this with their advertising dollars,” added Henson.