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Thursday, 19 January 2023

The man who drank enough Pepsi to (supposedly) get a military jet

???? ON THE TUBE TONIGHT-
(all times CLT)

Pepsi, Where's My Jet? follows the bizarre Leonard v. Pepsico, Inc. court case. The Netflix original docuseries directed by Andrew Renzi documents former student John Leonard’s courtroom battle against soft drinks giant PepsiCo. In the mid ‘90s, the company launched their “Drink Pepsi Get Stuff” campaign, and aired a commercial advertising that if you could rack up 7 mn Pepsi points you would get a USD 32 mn Harrier Jet military plane. The trouble began when Leonard actually collected the points — with the help of a few investors, including Todd Hoffman — and Pepsi refused to pay up, arguing that the commercial was a joke. Trying to get ahead of it, Pepsi actually sued Leonard first, before he filed a countersuit accusing PepsiCo of breach of contract, fraud, deceptive and unfair trade practices, and misleading advertising. The Pentagon even stepped in during the chaos, to state that the jet couldn’t be sold to civilians without “demilitarization.”

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