So… back in the 90’s the ‘cola wars‘ were in full effect.
Coke and Pepsi slugged it out on every possible medium available at the time for soda/pop market dominance. This included promotional campaigns to capture desired consumers and tie them to their particular brand.
Pepsi had their “Pepsi Stuff” campaign – where Pepsi drinkers could accumulate “Pepsi Points” off their products to buy stuff… or as the campaign stated Drink Pepsi – Get Stuff.
One unique item of that stuff included in Pepsi’s T.V. campaign was an actual Harrier Jet – y’know one of the most advanced pieces of technological weaponry in the U.S. arsenal at the time. The now infamous wink-wink ad stated that the jet was all yours… for a mere 7,000,000 Pepsi Points. No disclaimer.
Officials at Pepsi figured that this number of Pepsi Points was so laughably-unattainable (the equivalent of 1.4 million 12-packs of Pepsi or $4.3 million dollars) that the inclusion of the jet in the ad would surely be taken as a joke. And it was by most people but, then-college student, John Leonard, was not one of that particular Pepsi generation.
Leonard took it as a personal Pepsi challenge to get the jet for himself. And thus started a very real and lengthy legal battle over John accumulating the Pepsi Points and taking possession of the jet that he believed he fairly won.
This incredible story plays out in the new Netflix documentary Pepsi? Where’s My Jet? the trailer of which you can see below.
The doc hits Netflix on November 17th.
[YouTube: Netflix]
