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By: Ralf
Date: 8/6/99 10:12:57 AM
# Replies: 41
NEW YORK (AP) -- John D.R. Leonard never felt more a part of the "Pepsi Generation" than when he raised $700,000 to buy what he thought was a fighter jet the soft drink bottler was offering in a television commercial.
"I thought it was a great prize," he said.
After raising the money, the company told him it was only a joke. Leonard didn't laugh; he sued.
In a ruling made public Thursday, U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood sided with Pepsi, finding that "no objective person could reasonably have concluded that the commercial actually offered consumers a Harrier jet."
Leonard, 24, of Seattle, took it seriously when Pepsi implied that 7 million points in its "Pepsi Stuff" merchandise campaign could be redeemed for the jet.
The campaign had stickers worth various points attached to cans and bottles of Pepsi. The stickers could be accumulated and redeemed for various merchandise. The company also allowed customers to purchase points for 10 cents each.
A commercial for the campaign showed the prizes one could get with the stickers, and concluded with the Harrier for 7 million points.
Since each jet normally sells for $23 million, Wood said the possibility it could be bought for $700,000 was the first clue that the deal was "too good to be true."
David Nachman, Leonard's lawyer, said his client would consider an appeal.
"We're obviously disappointed," he said.
Response #1
By: Shadow Sprite
Date: 8/6/99 12:43:48 PM
What? No jet? That's it... I'm going back to 'New Coke'.
Response #2
By: Da Sissop
Date: 8/6/99 6:14:16 PM
I dunno, I kinda think the guy should get his jet. I mean, this ruling opens the door to all sorts of deceptive advertising, and while I personally remember that Pepsi commercial and didn't really think the bit about winning a Harrier was serious (because no human could *possibly* collect 7,000,000 Pepsi points anyway, right?), the fact remains that they did explicitly SAY in that ad that 7,000,000 points equals one Harrier.
So their position, as I see it, is "Yes we did advertise that you could get a Harrier for X number of points, but it should be obvious we were just *kidding*."
This is legitimizing "just kidding" as a defense?
Response #3
By: sooz
Date: 8/6/99 10:08:30 PM
I certainly hope so.
If jokes are outlawed, only outlaws will tell jokes.
Response #4
By: Homer The Brave
Date: 8/7/99 1:09:59 AM
Ralf, you couldn't just paste the text of the article?
I say give the guy his Harrier. He can go and take back the Falklands.
Response #5
By: sooz
Date: 8/7/99 1:44:10 PM
Yeah, every time this comes up, I get all these "script running error" things. Ick. Let's beat Ralf 'til he giggles.
Response #6
By: Da Sissop
Date: 8/8/99 8:04:00 AM
I feex it.
Response #7
By: Ralf
Date: 8/8/99 12:03:31 PM
I was kinda surprised Nunz let me paste an entire webpage. My godlike powers surprised even me.
For my next trick I will cut-and-paste the entire .mil domain into a Word97 document. (Hmmm.. maybe I better buy a bigger harddrive...)
Response #8
By: Jerichos Burlap
Date: 8/8/99 4:42:41 PM
Honest, Fang. It musta been embedded or something... It really started smoking ?
Response #9
By: Roxanne
Date: 8/9/99 10:37:16 AM
How sad that this case was even heard by the court. It should have been thrown out as frivolous to begin with.
Just what would the 24 year-old have done if he'd actually been given the jet? Did he have hanger space to keep it? Does he known how to fly one? Would Pepsi be held liable if he flew the jet over Iraq and was shot down?
Response #10
By: Da Sissop
Date: 8/9/99 9:33:13 PM
I think this is a *good* frivolous lawsuit. If advertisers are going to claim specifics, like, that you can get X if you do Y, then they oughta hold up their end of the bargain. Pepsi could have shown the Harrier and maybe an "X?" instead of a number... or better still, "XXX,XXX,XXX?" but no, they attached a real number to it.
What's to stop 'em from saying the Pepsi tote bag for 500 points was "obviously a joke" since any rational human knows you can't get real quality merchandise for anything but *money*?
Response #11
By: Gowan McGland
Date: 8/9/99 11:13:32 PM
The case wasn't frivolous in the slightest.
The original commercial didn't have any kind of disclaimer in it, so the guy took the chance that Pepsi would actually honor their advertisement.
He started a company and got investors to pony up the cash to buy the extra points that he needed and they were going to rent out the Harrier to auto- and airshows as a demo. Now he has to pay that money back to the investors as well as any legal fees he may have accrued. Considering this case has been brewing for a couple of years, he's gonna be out some cash.
Response #12
By: Jerichos Burlap
Date: 8/10/99 4:33:38 AM
He would probably have done better to sue the Federal Govt. in a class-action suit for allowing Pepsico to "flagrantly abuse the trust and hope that we all have in American Corporations". Much better chance of the Govt. ponying up the cash than a New York - based mega-corp. with buildings full of lawyers at their disposal.
Response #13
By: Ralf
Date: 8/10/99 7:57:38 AM
There's still an appeals process, right?
It COULD make it to the Supreme Court, right?
(And since when did common sense enter into commercials? Sounds like the advertisers want it both ways.)
Response #14
By: sooz
Date: 8/10/99 3:13:27 PM
If it had been me, I might have called Pepsi first to see if they had enough Harriers on hand to fill demands, etc. Setting up a company and getting investors based on a 30 second commercial seems, well, irresponsible.
Response #15
By: Homer The Brave
Date: 8/10/99 8:16:00 PM
What, you mean maybe I should check with Pontiac to make sure I'll get 'excitement' when I buy a new Firebird?
Response #16
By: Da Sissop
Date: 8/10/99 8:33:24 PM
Any reasonable person should know that you don't *really* experience "excitement" when driving a car.
Response #17
By: Gowan McGland
Date: 8/11/99 12:01:34 AM
It depends on the car, I think.
I'd get pretty excited if I was driving, say, a Ferrari.
At least, more excited than I would driving a Yugo.
Response #18
By: Homer The Brave
Date: 8/11/99 3:53:46 AM
How can you say that? I'd be totally jazzed to drive a Yugo, much more than a Ferrari.
Oh wait. I'm me. Forget it. You're right. 'Any *reasonable* person.'
Response #19
By: sooz
Date: 8/11/99 1:42:03 PM
Coke claimed to be "the real thing". I'm pretty sure this is incrroect, as I've seen lots of things that were real, so they can't be THE real thing.
They've also claimed that "Coke adds life" at that company. I drank one just minutes ago, and am no more alive than I was previously. I'm gonna sue these bastards.
Ford claims that their trucks are built "like a rock" (according to the tired old Bob Seger song they've over-used). After comparing the mollectular structure of trucks and rocks, they're not at all alike. Therefore, I should get a free truck. I'll see THEM in court.
I had a stick of Doublemint gum, and it neither doubled my pleasure NOR my fun. Off to court we go.
See where this could all lead, if the case against Pepsi had one?
Response #20
By: Da Sissop
Date: 8/11/99 2:17:57 PM
Nope, we're talking apples and tangelos. If brought to court, those would probably be challenged as "unsubstantiated claims" and the FTC has certain guidelines and criteria to define that stuff.
They've got seperate guidelines for defining "deceptive practices," which is probably what the Pepsi case would fall under, since it's more of a "bait-and-switch" issue. They advertise a Harrier for 7,000,000 points, but when you get to the store, they try to send you home with 14,000,000 Pepsi Tote bags instead.
Response #21
By: Roxanne
Date: 8/11/99 2:50:30 PM
I just finished taking a Marketing class this summer and what this case illustrates is the difference between "puffery" and "deception". Puffery is legal and deception is illegal.
No reasonable person would believe that Baxter the cat actually calls and asks for Meow Mix by name; no reasonable person would believe that Pepsi would have a Harrier to give away...
Response #22
By: Jerichos Burlap
Date: 8/11/99 3:19:03 PM
So, Pepsi's puffery precludes procecution? Am I getting this all right?
Response #23
By: Homer The Brave
Date: 8/11/99 6:29:32 PM
No, I think that advertising a Harrier for x-gadjillion points isn't so far fetched, given the amount that the major soft drink manufacturers spend on advertising and promotions in a year. (It's more than most countries' GNP.)
The cost of a Harrier would be a drop in the proverbial bucket of fizzy sugar-and-chemicals water.
Response #24
By: Da Sissop
Date: 8/11/99 7:11:14 PM
"Puffery"... I like that word!
So it sounds like there's this vaguely defined scale where, at one end, if an advertiser makes a claim or an offer, they are required by law to honor it... and on the other end, they can make a claim or offer, and as long as it's suitably outrageous and blatantly bogus they're off the hook.
The judge sided with roxy and sooz, but I don't necessarily agree that a "reasonable person" would automatically assume it was a joke. If they had said you could win a Space Shuttle, or the planet Mars, or whatnot, those, in *my* opinion, are much more blatantly bogus.
Therefore, the Harrier, which I know very little about, other than it is a very expensive airplane, is not *quite* as bogus-sounding as some other things would have been. Ergo, it's somewhere in the middle of the spectrum of outrageous claims.
If that makes me "unreasonable" then so be it. I am large; I contain multitudes.
Response #25
By: Gowan McGland
Date: 8/11/99 7:20:35 PM
PepsiCo could easily afford a Harrier for an advertising campaign.
I don't think Mars is currently within anyone's financial grasp, although they are trying to parcel out the shuttle nowadays.
Response #26
By: sooz
Date: 8/11/99 11:32:37 PM
Would a reasonable person start a company and get investors based on a claim on a 30 second commercial?
Response #27
By: Ralf
Date: 8/12/99 7:52:20 AM
If Pepsi had offered, say, a Lear jet for 7 million points, they'd probably have lost the case.
The Harrier, being a state'o-the-art military plane, is a different deal entirely. I doubt you can walk into a Harrier dealer and just BUY one no matter how much money you have. There are rules about these things, after all.
I betcha anything the guy knew all along that he'd never exchange his 7M points for a plane -- he was counting on publicity and a fierce David vs. Goliath court battle to erupt. Watch the huge faceless multinational company beat up on a loyal customer!
Then he could settle the case for half the value of a Harrier, and walk away with a neat profit, even after paying off his investors.
If I were Coca Cola, I'd buy the guy a Harrier just to piss Pepsico off.
Response #28
By: Roxanne
Date: 8/12/99 8:45:47 AM
I guess if Coca Cola and Pepsi had Harrier jets and other military hardware, that would give a whole new meaning to the phrase "Cola Wars"!
Response #29
By: Ralf
Date: 8/14/99 10:32:07 AM
I hope the first casualty is that little girl with the creepy voice.
Response #30
By: Homer The Brave
Date: 8/17/99 4:31:00 AM
My kidneys are victims in the cola wars.
Response #31
By: Jerichos Burlap
Date: 8/17/99 6:30:11 AM
Hey, what a great idea - "War Cola", The Real American's choice! Wonder if I could get it out by Christmas...
Response #32
By: Shadow Sprite
Date: 8/17/99 8:39:01 AM
Anything beats those store-brand colas... except for the Black Cherry cola. That's mighty tasty stuff. I wonder why only store-brands have that flavour.
Response #33
By: Roxanne
Date: 8/17/99 10:31:19 AM
Shouldn't that be "African American Cherry"?
Response #34
By: Shadow Sprite
Date: 8/17/99 11:21:59 AM
You know, it's not like Europe has these problems. You never hear of African Europeans. Is America just so distasteful that another nationality has to be thrown in as well?
"Oh, don't worry - I'm not all American, I'm African too."
From now on I'm listing my nationality as German-American (with a hint of British).
I feel really sorry for those with multiple nationality ancestors now!
Response #35
By: Ralf
Date: 8/17/99 5:17:37 PM
Zeta Reticulan, here. With a dash of Satan.
Response #36
By: sooz
Date: 8/17/99 7:03:49 PM
Plain old white bread, with a hint of embarassing white-trash hillbilly thrown in. I married a Mexican/Greek/American Indian to make up for it,though.
Response #37
By: Jerichos Burlap
Date: 8/18/99 1:53:32 AM
Pan-European mutt Merikan here, bubba. (Tip of the day: When you see the Optional Ethnic Origin boxes on forms, check them all - Indian, Black, Eskimo... - then look totally indignant if questioned about it. Has been the high-point of several of my days.)
Response #38
By: Ralf
Date: 8/18/99 9:10:59 AM
"Why yes, I am 1/255th Inuit. You have a problem with that?"
Hiring quotas suck. Why don't they just skip the ethnicity part of the quiz and cut to the chase:
"You're in luck! I have to hire a 'Pissed-Off Self-Described Oppressed Person' before close of business today... when can you start?"
Response #39
By: sooz
Date: 8/18/99 9:20:17 AM
The US Census folks are finally adding "other" or "mixed race" or some such to the new census. About damned time. I don't know anyone that's 100% anything. Let's all check "melting pot product".
Richie (the American Indian/Mexican/Greek to whom I referred earlier) wanted to get hired at Motorola once. He looks pretty much white by skin tone, but not by features. So he usually just checks "Caucasian". He did this on his Motorola application and didn't get an interview.
A few months later, he re-applied. He checked "other", and a message from Motorola was on his machine before he got home that day. They hopped him past the first 2 interview stages, moving him straight to the third.
Amazing.
Response #40
By: Gowan McGland
Date: 8/18/99 11:36:06 PM
I usually put Other for Gender and Age, as well.
Response #41
By: Ralf
Date: 8/19/99 9:10:17 AM
We can use a man like you, here at La Cage aux Folles.