To most people, Pepsi’s new logo looks a lot like the old one.

To the ad firm that conceived it, however, the revamped logo draws on thousands of years of design principles, the Earth’s gravitational pull and the greatest works of art to persuade people to buy soda.

Last year, Pepsi tapped the Arnell Group, run by founder Peter Arnell and owned by ad giant Omnicom, to handle the redesign, which experts estimated cost more than $1 million to create and hundreds of millions more to plaster on packaging, signs and promotions.

The new logo is similar to the old red-white-and-blue globe except there is a white band in the center that is supposed to resemble a smile. It’s not exactly revolutionary, but try telling that to Arnell, which wrote a lofty treatise designed to sell Pepsi on the idea.

That document, which was leaked onto the Web, is now being held up as an example of what ails the ad industry. Critics called it the worst kind of puffery, a waste of marketing dollars and proof that the ad industry just doesn’t “get” the consumer.

The document was originally posted on reddit.com, where it generated more than 500 comments, most of them taking the ad industry and self-important “creative” types to task.

The individual who posted the presentation, purportedly a freelancer for one of Pepsi’s ad agencies, said, “It really hammers in the stereotype of advertising in general, and the complete idiocy that goes in to marketing.”

The document, called “Breathtaking Design Strategy,” is littered with historical, philosophical, scientific and mathematical ideas dating back to 3000 BC. It references the Golden Ratio, Feng Shui and Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity.

At one point, the presentation compares “Planet Pepsi” to the Earth’s magnetic pull, with diagrams showing Pepsi as the gravitational force between the end of the aisle and the checkout stand.

And it doesn’t stop there. The beverage goes from being the center of the Earth to the center of the universe.

“It’s sort of like the rings of hell in Dante’s ‘Inferno,’ ” said Mark DiMassimo, a partner at New York ad firm DiMassimo Goldstein. “There are rings of b.s. in the marketing and advertising business. This is an extreme example of design-focused, brand-identity bull.”

A spokesman for Peter Arnell declined to comment.

This is the second time Pepsi’s logo has drawn some unfavorable comments. When it debuted just before the inauguration, some critics thought the logo was too similar to President Barack Obama’s “O” campaign logo.

“We’re very happy with the new look of the logo,” said Nicole Bradley, a Pepsi spokeswoman. “The new design and our packaging have a clean, contemporary look that has been very well received by our consumers.” holly.sanders@nypost.com