white woman being assaulted and murdered by a group of men, but she is too frozen in fear to protest. A black man walking down the alley also sees the incident and runs to help the woman, but the murderers flee just as the police arrive. The police mistakenly suspect the black man of being the killer and arrest him. The real murderers give a threatening look towards Madonna and leave. She flees the crime scene and escapes to a church. There she sees a caged statue of a saint who resembles the black man on the street. As the song starts, she utters a prayer in front of the statue which appears to be crying. Madonna lies down on a pew and has a dream in which she is falling through space. Suddenly, a woman, representing power and strength, catches her. She advises Madonna to do what is right and tosses her back up. Still dreaming, Madonna returns to the statue, which transforms into the black man she had seen earlier. He kisses her forehead and leaves the church as she picks up a knife and accidentally cuts herself, making the sign of the stigmata on her hands. Interspersing scenes show Madonna singing and dancing wildly in front of burning crosses, kissing scenes between her and the saint, and the singer being surrounded by a choir inside the church, led by the woman who caught her earlier. Madonna wakes up, goes to the jail and tells the police that she had witnessed the crime and that the black man is innocent; the police release him. The video ends as Madonna dances in front of the burning crosses, and then everybody involved in the story line take a bow as curtains come down on the set. Pepsi commercial In January 1989, while the music video was still being filmed, Pepsi-Cola announced that they had signed Madonna for US$5 million deal to feature the singer and "Like a Prayer" for the company's television commercial. The deal also included Pepsi sponsoring Madonna's next world tour. Madonna wanted to use the commercial to launch "Like a Prayer" globally before its actual release—the first time something like this was being done in the music industry. According to the company's advertising head Alan Pottasch, "the global media buy and unprecedented debut of this long awaited single will put Pepsi first and foremost in consumer's minds".