Pepsi cans hi-tech adverts

When a company with all the multi-billion-pound clout of Pepsi sets about commissioning a new ad, you expect it to think big.

After all, this is the company that has used such icons as Britney Spears, David Beckham - even Concorde - to aid its quest for global soft drinks domination.

So it is a surprise that, although Pepsi's latest Matrix-style ad is full of stunts, they are not based on state-of-the-art CGI visual trickery but a 17th-century Japanese art.

Bunraku is a type of puppetry which uses large marionettes moved by several puppeteers.

It is also known as ningyo-joruri, literally puppets and storytelling. The artform has been revived in Japan, its popularity fuelled by a variety show called Masquerade.

However, it has replaced the marionettes with actors.

It was while watching one of the show's sketches, called Matrix pingpong, that Pepsi ad director Tom Carty got his inspiration.

He saw one sketch in which two players were moved around by puppeteers covered in black, creating bizarre but simple stunts.

Mr Carty, who directed the Guinness 'surfer' ad, said: 'For me what is interesting is these guys invent their own special effects.

'You can do anything with special effects these days and no one is surprised, so it is nice to go to the other end of the scale and create something genuinely fresh.'

The new ad, which will be on TV from Monday, sees stunt artists leaping, dancing and fighting 'kung fu' style over a can of Pepsi Max. It was shot in two days at Black Island Studios in Acton, West London.