‘Pepsi didn’t expect a dreamer like me’: the student who sued a soft drinks giant over a $23m fighter jet | TV & Radio

In 1996, PepsiCo—then identified for creating the younger, cool, fizzy drink of a technology—made an unimaginable mistake. The corporate had simply rolled out its Pepsi Factors program, which allowed clients to avoid wasting Pepsi labels and redeem them for Pepsi-branded merchandise. For sixty tokens you’ll get a hat. 4 hundred and you’ll get a denim jacket. However within the business accompanying the launch, Pepsi went even additional, joking that anybody who collected 7 million labels can be entitled to a model new Harrier leap jet. The error? Pepsi forgot so as to add any superb print to point it was a joke.

That one oversight now types the idea for a extremely entertaining Netflix collection entitled Pepsi, where’s my jet? It tells the story of John Leonard, a Washington State Group School pupil who determined to take Pepsi at his phrase. After shortly realizing that purchasing 7 million cans or bottles of Pepsi can be prohibitively costly, Leonard noticed a disclaimer revealing customers may purchase Pepsi factors for 10 cents every as a substitute of amassing labels. A $23M Harrier Soar Jet For Simply $700,000? That was the cut price of the century. Over 4 episodes, the present follows a younger man’s dedication to tackle a multinational company to get what an advert promised him.

“John had that type of Spielberg high quality about him when he was youthful the place something was potential,” says Andrew Renzi, the present’s director, throughout a riotous four-way zoom name with Leonard and Todd Hoffman (learn extra) . him later). “I do not know for those who’ve ever seen the film Being There,” provides Renzi, referring to the Peter Sellers satire a few gardener who by accident sneaks into the corridors of energy, “however I had this factor in my head the place John Leonard at 19 is Peter Sellers.”

“Sure. In order that’s fairly correct,” Leonard interrupts.

Renzi sighs. “I forgot to say that John is opinionated,” he says.

Renzi was initially supplied Pepsi, the place’s my jet? as a fictional work. However after monitoring down Leonard, then in his mid-40s working as a park ranger in Alaska, he realized the reality can be extra entertaining.

“It was a very long time in the past,” Leonard continues. “And I simply needed to maintain it again there as one thing humorous that occurred a very long time in the past.” That modified when the Netflix The Tiger King collection grew to become a lockdown hit and folks began on the lookout for weirder historic tales to show into documentaries. numerous producers have been nosing round. “There have been some actually neat individuals who bought concerned with this actually fats used automotive salesman, Hollywood man. However Renzi emailed me. And from all of the totally different emails I bought, it actually felt real. It did not appear to be blowing smoke up your ass was the previous factor. However on the identical time, Todd and I had a dialog. He stated one thing like, “That is a cool story. It must be informed and it must be informed by the best individual.’ He stated, ‘If I die, I’d be glad to have this on my epitaph.’”

Now let’s introduce Hoffman, the key ingredient to the entire loopy scheme. Hoffman, then a charismatic millionaire in his forties, had befriended Leonard on a mountaineering journey. And when Leonard realized he wanted $700,000 to oust a fighter jet from a carbonated beverage firm, Hoffman was the primary individual he reached out to. To everybody’s shock, Hoffman was ecstatic.

“John introduced me this and informed me the story,” he remembers. “We watched the videotape of the business, and I simply watched it time and again and stated, ‘That is completely a reckless advert launched by an enormous firm that is aware of higher.'” After that time , the sport was in progress. Pepsi’s protection has been constant that the advert was clearly a joke. At one level in the course of the collection, a Pepsi spokesperson mentions that just one individual really tried to redeem the jet deal, whereas thousands and thousands of individuals noticed the advert. It is potential that nobody else went so far as Leonard to assert the award, however he does level out that he first heard about Pepsi Factors when he was a father to the little league baseball workforce he coached. talked about that he was a part of a jet shopping for syndicate. Leonard was distinctive in that he was the one viewer who had entry to Hoffman, a like-minded renegade with the means to help him.

Leonard describes Hoffman as “the maths that Pepsi did not do. They figured there can be loads of dreamers like me, however they by no means thought {that a} dreamer like me would ever have entry to somebody keen to go on that loopy journey and truly write the test.”

“Once I was producing the collection, I at all times had this motto: ‘Everybody wants a John and everybody wants a Todd,'” explains Renzi. And it is this relationship between two males of various generations who had a wild concept and introduced it to fruition that runs like a golden thread via the collection. Even a long time later, by way of Zoom, they’re heat and acquainted, diving into one another’s tales and ending one another’s sentences.

“I simply love being linked to folks like John,” beams Hoffman. “He seems completely critical and he seems conservative, however he is loopy. He is demonstrably insane. he has a job He has a good looking household. He is bought a home and he is paying a mortgage and he goes to work every single day, however he is bought some actual psychological stuff occurring. Far past the horizon.”

The climax of the story is simple to google, however the journey to get there may be about as insane as its creation. At one level, Michael Avenatti, later discredited as Stormy Daniels’ lawyer to assist battle Pepsi, reveals up and shares a resort room with Leonard on a so-called “aircraft, prepare, and vehicle street journey via the center man.” West”. “. Avenatti filmed his segments for the present whereas beneath home arrest for attempting extort up to $25 million from Nike (He has since jailed for fraud on Daniels), however his involvement within the case was a uncommon level of rivalry between Hoffman and Leonard. Whereas Leonard developed a private friendship with Avenatti, Hoffman resented his strategies. “I did not see him as an enormous a part of our story,” he says of Avenatti’s identify.

You sense that Pepsi remains to be embarrassed by the skirmish. The battle over the jet hasn’t executed the corporate any favours. Again then, it was nonetheless embroiled within the “Cola Wars” with Coca-Cola — a ruthless battle for dominance that noticed Pepsi institute blind style assessments to show its superiority to the world — and any slip may have been lethal. Right here was a model that bought itself by how cool and youthful it was, however it responded to Leonard’s declare with – spoiler alert! – hitting him with groups of company legal professionals. When the tv networks noticed what an outspoken, harmless boy Leonard was and requested politely about his leap jet, he was instantly all over the place. It was a horrible publicity stunt by Pepsi, and Hoffman nonetheless believes the self-inflicted injury continues.

“John was the all-American child,” he says. “He was the Pepsi technology. And that is type of ironic too. Pepsi missed an amazing alternative to lasso this child and say, “Look, we’ll take you throughout the nation on the Harrier jet subsequent yr, we’ll pay you one million {dollars}.” Really, as a substitute of hiring legal professionals and suing us, they may have executed the best factor and stated, ‘This boy made the deal. He rang the bell and bought the prize, you recognize?”

But this all occurred 1 / 4 of a century in the past. The world has moved on. Leonard and Hoffman have modified. As we wrap up, I ask if it feels unusual so that you can look again into the distant previous like that, figuring out how a lot consideration the present goes to convey.

“I’ve change into delicate to this over time as a result of even shut folks have stated, ‘Nicely, you are an opportunist,'” explains Leonard. “Legal guidelines like this find yourself being in comparison with these McDonald’s hot coffee, that type of ambulance hunter factor. And that bought me mistaken. Looking back, it was opportunistic. Completely. However that is not at all times a destructive factor. And on the time, I believed with all my coronary heart that we have been going to get the jet.

“What I am fighting as we speak,” he provides, “is how may I actually have thought I used to be going to get the jet? I am 48 years previous now and I am wanting again on it now, what sort of dork have been you man?”

Pepsi, the place’s my jet? is on Netflix from Thursday