Pepsi, Cadê Meu Avião?

Although I was in my twenties in the nineties, I didn't know this story (I'm from Europe). That means I didn't know the ending. Some people here commenting on how it could've been told in five minutes... I don't agree! I simply don't. Since it eventually became highly discussed law book material, it was complex matter.

I have to give kudos to the makers who did an amazing job in storytelling, crazy montage, chosing the music and making this a four episode fun and interesting to watch documentary. I dated a documentary maker so I watched first hand that making a documentary is a hatd and lengthy process. The makers definitely succeeded in making a good one.

I didn't like the show because it dragged too much. The whole story could be told in 1h or so. The friendship and adventures are nice, but the mountain climbing had too much screen time.

The advertising by Pepsi was cool and clever back then. They had a nice promotion to trade points for items. The items in the catalog seems cool, I would like to get some of that merchandise in a promo like that these days, but I would probably just buy coca-cola lol

The documentary also shows some problems they had in the Philippines that were much worse than the jet issue. I wish they showed more about the Philippines and how that played out, instead of fillers.

In a perfect marketplace products win by offering the best mix of attributes for the consumer over the competition. When this is no longer the case things get more complicated. The consumer must be manipulated in some way the actual product takes a back seat. For perpetual underdog soda manufacturer Pepsi to dethrone Coca-Cola the answer was spending huge amounts of money on advertisements, and, as this film details, promotions.

It's interesting a billion-dollar corporation like Pepsi would not do all due diligence when creating and rolling out a major contest. You can be sure they were exacting enough to scrutinize the increased sales over the course of a promotion, but to not understand what they were offering and, more so, the rules where points could be purchased is beyond lax. The Pepsi Stuff promo, with a top prize of a Harrier jet, was such a gaff.

John Leonard, a young college student, bought into the idea of this contest. At first he tried collecting the points finding it rather futile. Then he read the contest rules after picking up a Pepsi Stuff catalog. Realizing enough points for the jet could be purchased at far below the value of the actual jet was the moment things began to get surreal. Having a very wealthy friend comes in now. The friend writes the check for the needed points and John fills out a winning points request for the jet and mails it to Pepsi with the check.

The whole thing sounds like a smart-aleck trick by a typical teenager. That, however, would dismiss the sma@$$ corporation trying to manipulate the buying behavior of the public, particularly the youngest who are likely most susceptible. The moral of this story is if your company is going to play this game you should prepare for all possible outcomes. Pepsi definitely got egg on their face, yet somehow came out of it with minor scratches. One can only imagine what the outcome may have been had this case received a trial by jury.

I find this case extremely interesting. The film did a good job of explaining the timeline of the case and explaining what decisions John Leonard made at various junctions. Truth is companies making the products we buy are master manipulators who dig right down into our pockets without very much moral fiber. In the current market Nike comes to mind recently taking their product out of thousands of smaller retailers. Their endgame can only be to extract more dollars from each sale, perhaps even making product availability less while raising that margin. It's kind of like if the company is big enough they get to write their own rules unless they make a major mis-step like Pepsi. That said, it doesn't look like Pepsi is hurting. This is an entertaining look at corporate shenanigans that is highly recommended.

Netflix documentaries strength is about telling a story about people. Whether he should or not should have a jet is an interesting topic, but that's not why it should be a 4 episode documentary. It needs that time for us to cozy down and immerse ourselves in the lives of the participants.

This a lovely ride to the 90s. A ride to make us remember when we were kids and looked at unattainable dreams in catalogues that offered prices to kids who seld magazines or collected bottlecaps.

I never got close to the big prizes, but my heart is with the kid who went for it.

You sell dreams you should deliver on them.

As Episode 1 of "Pepsi, Where's My Jet" (2022 release; 4 episodes ranging from 36 to 43 min) opens, we are introduced to the cutting edge ad campaigns by Pepsi in the 90s, as the cola wars raged between Coke and Pepsi. In 1995, Pepsi launched the "Drink Pepsi, Get Stuff" campaign, including "7,000,000 points: Harrier Fight" (the military jet that can take off and land vertically). John Leonard, a 20 yo from Seattle, facies that jet and starts plotting a way to collect 7,000,000 Pepsi points. At this point we are 10 min into Episode 1.

Couple of comments: this is the latest from documentary producer/director Andrew Renzo )("Ready For War"). Here he looks back at the stranger than fiction story of how a 20 yo took on Pepsi over the promise/offer to give a military jet if one collects 7 million Pepsi points. Of course I'm not going to spoil how it all turns out, but let's just say that lawyers get involved. Lots of lawyers. The tone of this mini-series is firmly tongue-in-cheek, none more so than by the protagonist, John Leonard, who lives to tell the tale now a quarter century later, and his "can you believe this happened to me?" way of talking to us. That said, even though it runs only 4 episodes, there is quite a bit of fluff in this, in particularly as Renzi reflects on Leonard's ongoing friendship to this day with another protagonist in the story. Totally unrelated: I kept thinking to myself that Pepsi's ad campaigns in those days were indeed very much cutting edge. Whatever happened to that? We need a new cola war!

"Pepsi, Where's My Jet?" premiered on Netflix last week, and all 4 episodes are now streaming. If you are in the mood for a light=hearted "stranger than fiction" documentary, I'd readily suggest you check this out, and draw your own conclusion.