So, when you finish a kidnapping documentary, naturally, you go to look for more documentaries to be mad at. Thank you, Netflix, for giving me Pepsi, Where is My Jet?
So in 1995, Pepsi and Coca-Cola were at war. It was all about who could sell the most by appealing to the youth. It’s the Apple vs. Samsung debate we currently have every day. (Samsung is better.) Anyway, Pepsi came up with this idea of “Pepsi Points,” an idea that is kind of common now. Well, it’s done better now…but we’ll get to that. The Pepsi Points system had one simple goal, get people to buy as much Pepsi as possible to gather these points so consumers can get stuff like hats, sunglasses, shirts, etc. Now, if you’re not familiar with this commercial or lawsuit, then you’re probably wondering why I’m even bringing this up as a discussion. Let’s roll that beautiful bean footage, ladies and gentlemen.
Now that you’ve seen the evidence, let’s have the discussion, shall we? So, I want to start by saying, if you looked closely, there was no disclaimer at the end or bottom of that commercial. It just ends. In Canada, of all places, there is a disclaimer. They never explain why in the doc and it bothered me. Back to the argument. Let me bring you back to Amber in high school or even middle school. You remember when we had to do those school fundraisers, they would have a whole presentation in the auditorium. Your school may have not done that but mine did. I remember there being a bike that I wanted, and then I remember seeing how much I had to sell in order to get the bike. It was then that I realized that I had no chance of getting the bike. When they showed this commercial in the documentary, nostalgia took over. I realized that if I was older in 1995, (I was three,) that I would have said to myself, “I’m never going to be able to get seven million Pepsi Points.” That was not the mindset of John Leonard. Leonard saw that jet at the end of that commercial and said, “I can use this as a way to get around when I climb.” I really want to know who else at that time also thought that they could use that jet for something. They also never answer that in the documentary.
You may be thinking, “How many Pepsis did you have to buy to get to seven million Pepsi Points?” I cannot remember the exact number from the documentary, but I do remember this tidbit. ONE PACK of Pepsi , which was like is like six individual Pepsis, was worth FIVE Pepsi Points. I repeat FIVE Pepsi Points. You may be wondering now, “John is out of his mind. He’d never be able to get THAT many points before the promotion ended.” Exactly what Leonard and I thought until he picked up the catalog. Can you guess what was in the fine print of the catalog? I’m going to tell you. The fine print said, in a sense, if you cannot amass these Pepsi Points the traditional way, you can BUY THE POINTS. Pause here. If I can buy the points, what is the point of the promotion? You could have made it so I can buy Pepsi gear and made the commercial around that. They had Cindy Crawford and a host of other celebrities. That would have been the easy grab, but no, we went for gathering these Pepsi Points. Ok, Pepsi. NOW, guess how Leonard decided to amass the seven million Pepsi Points? I know. I know. Buying seven million Pepsi Points is still a lot of money, right. For Leonard, it was nothing because he had a backer. Leonard was a climber and his mentor gave him the money to buy the points for the jet. You may say, “Hey, Amber. How much did he have to pay?” $700,000 for the points for the Harrier jet.
This is the bigger question I know you are dying to know. Can you legally own a Harrier jet? Those of you in the military know that this jet is a military jet. The answer to your question is no. No, you cannot own a Harrier jet. You might also wonder if the jet was in the catalog with all the other things you could snag with Pepsi Points. No, no it was not. When he sent the check in, he added a box and wrote “harrier jet” next to it.
So, couple things. It took me until part four to understand why Pepsi even put seven million points under the jet. The story goes that the team from the marketing agency originally had 700,000,000 has the number, but to some executive, it didn’t read well. As someone who works on corporate America, I have had to tell someone higher than me in several instances, “No, we cannot adjust this because the boxes don’t align. Is the message there? Yes, so there is nothing else I want to discuss about the visual of this.” They just kept removing zeros until the exec was happy. This is dumb and I don’t care who the client is, you tell them no. I know no one wants to be that dude, but someone had to be that dude. Next point. Although the jet was in the commercial with no disclaimer, it was not in the catalog, I am of the mindset that if it wasn’t in the printed catalog, that it was not for sale. Also, YOU CANNOT LEGALLY OWN A HARRIER JET. I watched four parts of nonsense at the end of the day. For me, it should not have gotten as far as it did. What made this worse, is it started with Pepsi suing Leonard for wanting to buy something that was illegal after they sent him a letter saying that the jet in the commercial, complete with points, was a joke.
As a baby side note, does anyone remember that Hey Arnold episode where the neighborhood rallied together to get into the Guinness World Records books? Imagine if a kid in a local neighborhood wanted that jet and rallied his neighborhood to help. Just imagine. Did no one think about that when they told the ad team to take off some zeros? AND, I want someone to tell me IMMEDIATELY why Canada had a disclaimer and the US did not. And I do not agree with John’s mentor in thinking that Pepsi wanted kids to believe that they could own a jet. I want to know how many people this had to go through. Who made the final decision? In addition, who made it so you could BUY the points? I keep torturing yourself with these docs and upsetting myself, but I’m going to keep watching them because they’re so good! I also get really good discussion topics.
So with all the information given to you, my reader, by me, who watched this documentary and was upset by all of the missed common sense, do you believe that John deserved the Harrier jet?
