In 1996, Pepsico ran a promotion where empty Pepsi containers could be redeemed for prizes. Each container was worth a certain number of points, and when you accumulated enough points, you could get a shirt, sunglasses, a hat, a Harrier jet, or the like.
Harrier jet? Well, one of the Pepsi commercials featured a teenager using Pepsi points to acquire various personal items in preparation for school while identifying how many points were required for each item. At the end of the commercial, the teen lands a Harrier jet near the bike rack of his school and smugly says "Sure beats the bus." The commercial then flashes on the screen the message "Harrier Fighter: 7,000,000 Pepsi Points."
John Leonard, a business school student, saw the commercial. He discovered that Pepsi points could be purchased directly for cash at the price of ten cents per point. He got together with five investors and, on March 28, 1996, tendered 15 Pepsi points along with a check for $700,008.50 for the remaining 6,999,985 points and demanded his Harrier (the surplusage of $10 represented costs for "shipping and handling.") Pepsi refused to give Leonard his plane (which normally sold for about $33.8 million apiece when they were purchased for the US Marine Corps).
Leonard sued Pepsi for misleading advertising, fraud, breach of contract, and deceptive and unfair trade practices. He lost. The judge bought Pepsi's argument that no objectively reasonable person could have thought that the commercial constituted a genuine offer on the part of Pepsi.
It was probably just as well for Leonard. The Department of Defense would not have allowed a civilian to purchase a Harrier anyway without first gutting it and stripping it of various armaments and military features--including the famous Harrier engine which permits it to take off and land vertically.
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| Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons |
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