“Pepsi, where is my plane?” is a new documentary series that premiered this Thursday (17th) on Netflix that tells the story of a mistake that cost the soft drink giant dearly.
In 1996, PepsiCo made a disastrous mistake. The company launched a points program, where its consumers could keep Pepsi labels and exchange them for Pepsi-branded products. Sixty tokens would give a hat. Four hundred and you’d have a denim jacket.
But in the commercial accompanying the launch, Pepsi went further, joking that anyone who collected 7 million labels would be entitled to a brand new Harrier jet. The error? Pepsi forgot to add any fine print in the campaign footer pointing out that it was a joke.
This failure is the basis of the new Netflix documentary series “Pepsi, Where’s My Plane?”. The new production tells the story of John Leonard, a college student who decides to make Pepsi keep its word.
After quickly realizing that buying 7 million cans or bottles of Pepsi soda would be extremely expensive, Leonard saw an alert revealing that instead of collecting labels, consumers could purchase Pepsi points for 10 cents each. A Harrier jet worth $23 million for just $700,000? It was the deal of the century. With the funding of his friend Todd Hoffman, the young man went in search of what was promised.
In four episodes, the series tells the story of a young man’s determination to face a multinational company to try to get what an advertisement had promised him. The result, spoiler-free, was a legal battle and a profound impact on Pepsi’s image.
Initially, the director of the series, Andrew Renzi, received an offer to turn this fantastic story into fiction. But after spotting Leonard, who was in his 40s at the time and working as a park ranger in Alaska, he realized the truth would be more fun.
Watch the official synopsis of the documentary series: The Coca-Cola war was on fire in 1996. Even with its super celebrity advertising, Pepsi failed to steal the leadership from Coca-Cola and, therefore, decided to launch its biggest advertising campaign to date: the “Pepsi Stuff”. With an infamous commercial, the campaign promised “Pepsi Points” with every purchase, which could be exchanged for branded products such as sunglasses, leather jackets… and a Harrier plane? In the minds of Pepsi executives, the military jet’s astronomical “price” implied it was all a joke, but college student John Leonard took the story seriously and decided to take on the challenge. With the help (and funding) of his climbing partner Todd Hoffman, Leonard hatched a plan to win a grand prize that never happened. With an irreverent and fun style, as well as cultural references and a 90s soundtrack, Pepsi, Cadê Meu Avião? features interviews with Leonard, Hoffman, the creative team behind the commercial and an unexpected cast of celebrities involved in the case to tell the legendary story of the boy who sued Pepsi over its military fighter jet and ended up becoming a next generation hero .
“Pepsi, where is my plane?” is available on Netflix.
The post “Pepsi, where’s my plane?”: The Netflix documentary chronicles a costly mistake that first appeared on Olhar Digital.
Source: Olhar Digital
Camila Luna is a writer at Gossipify, where she covers the latest movies and television series. With a passion for all things entertainment, Camila brings her unique perspective to her writing and offers readers an inside look at the industry. Camila is a graduate from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) with a degree in English and is also a avid movie watcher.
