When you make promises, it’s best to be sure you can keep them. This is undoubtedly the lesson that Pepsi learned from a case still cited today as an example in law and marketing courses.
Back in 1996. Pepsi launches a major advertising campaign that encourages people to collect points to win gifts. For 75 points you can get a t-shirt, for 175 points a pair of sunglasses, for 1,450 points a leather jacket.
So far, nothing very ruffling. But at the end of the commercial, we see a young man landing a jet McDonnell Douglas Harrier in front of the entrance to his school. “A Harrier hunter for 7 million points”, then announces the video.
Certainly a joke for the Pepsi advertisers. Except that a small written mention in the gift catalog attracts the attention of a man named John Leonard, then a business school student.
Instead of collecting points, the freebies can be purchased for a payment of 10 cents for one point. That is $ 700,000 to win the jet: a huge sum, certainly, but well below the real cost of the plane, which amounted to $ 33.8 million at the time.
The student then convinces five investors to lend him the $ 700,000, then sends the check to Pepsi and waits for his jet. Who will never come.
Return the Harrier
In response to his request, John Leonard receives a letter from Pepsi containing some free vouchers and explaining that the jet “Not part of the gift catalog” and “Is only intended to create a humorous and entertaining advertisement”, tells the site Better Marketing.
Vouchers instead of a $ 30 million jet? Out of the question for the student, who hires a lawyer ordering Pepsi to keep his promise or face legal action.
The dispute dates back to Pepsi’s chief marketing officer, who is arguing “That no reasonable person can think that this was a serious offer”. Nothing to do: the case takes a judicial turn and the quarrels between the two parties will last three long years, before a judge rules in favor of Pepsi on two central points.
First, he says that an advertising spot does not constitute a contractual offer. Second, he confirms that the tone of the advertisement was clearly that of a joke – Pepsi will, however, revise the “price” of the Harrier jet. in a corrected spot, at 700 million points.
Other brands spreading false promises have already had their costs. In 2014, Red Bull had to pay $ 13 million among American consumers who felt deceived by the slogan “Red Bull gives you wings”.
Lawyers did not go so far as to ask Red Bull to grow fins on clients’ backs, but ruled that the brand was falsely giving itself a “superiority” compared to coffee or other source of caffeine.
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