Why a $700,000 Check Didn't Buy Pepsi's Harrier Jet
A mid-1990s Pepsi commercial put a fighter jet in its prize catalog for 7 million points, and Pepsi sold extra points for a dime. One customer did the math, mailed a check, and ended up in federal court.
The short version
A Pepsi Stuff commercial showed a Harrier fighter jet for 7,000,000 Pepsi Points, and the catalog let customers buy extra points for 10 cents each, which put the jet at about $700,000 on paper. John Leonard sent Pepsi an order form, 15 original points and a check for $700,008.50, and Pepsi refused, saying the jet was there to make the ad funny. A federal judge ruled in 1999 that the commercial was never an offer, an appeals court agreed in 2000, and he never got the jet.
Seven million points for a fighter jet
In the mid-1990s, Pepsi ran a promotion called Pepsi Stuff, in which customers collected Pepsi Points and redeemed them for merchandise from a catalog. One commercial for the campaign showed a student flying a Harrier jet to school, with an on-screen caption pricing the aircraft at 7,000,000 Pepsi Points. According to the federal court decision that later took the ad apart, Pepsi test-marketed the promotion in the Pacific Northwest from October 1995 to March 1996.
That number might have stayed absurd if not for the catalog's fine print. Additional Pepsi Points could be bought for 10 cents each, as long as each order included at least 15 original points. Multiply it out, and the jet's price on paper came to about $700,000.
An order form, 15 points and a $700,008.50 check
John Leonard did that multiplication. Press coverage at the time described him as a business student who raised the money from investors. On or about March 27, 1996, according to the court's decision, he sent Pepsi an order form for one Harrier jet, 15 original Pepsi Points and a check for $700,008.50.
Pepsi said no. Its reply described the jet as fanciful, said it was there only to make the commercial funny and entertaining, and enclosed some coupons for free Pepsi products instead. The check bought nothing, and no jet ever changed hands.
According to Leonard's account, as recorded in the decision, Pepsi then re-edited the commercial twice: first raising the Harrier's price to 700,000,000 points, then adding a just-kidding disclaimer. The court noted this as his assertion rather than making its own finding on it.
Pepsi went to court first
The lawsuit that made the case famous did not start with Leonard. On July 18, 1996, PepsiCo filed suit in federal court in New York, asking for a declaratory judgment that it had no obligation to provide him with a Harrier jet. In other words, the company asked a judge to confirm it owed nothing before Leonard had filed a suit of his own. Leonard responded on August 6, 1996, with a suit in Florida state court, even though, as the decision observed, the dispute had nothing to do with Florida.
The case was decided by Judge Kimba M. Wood of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.
Why the court said the ad was never an offer
On August 5, 1999, Judge Wood granted summary judgment to PepsiCo. Her central point was that the commercial was an advertisement, not an offer, and that no reasonable viewer could have concluded Pepsi was really selling a military jet for points. She also found that the claimed contract did not satisfy the statute of frauds, the legal requirement that certain contracts be put in writing.
The opinion also looked hard at the ad itself. Judge Wood called the idea of flying a Harrier to school "an exaggerated adolescent fantasy" and agreed with Pepsi's description of the spot as zany humor. She noted that a Harrier jet costs roughly $28 million, a figure Leonard knew.
Leonard appealed. On April 17, 2000, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit affirmed, substantially for the reasons in Judge Wood's opinion. He never received a jet.
What a 7-million-point price tag shows about advertised prices
The gap between the two numbers explains the whole dispute. Inside the ad, the jet cost 7,000,000 points; on paper, that converted to about $700,000; in the real world, according to the court, a Harrier cost roughly $28 million. The arithmetic held up, but the court held that a price shown in an obviously humorous commercial was never a price anyone could claim.
The story has stayed in circulation. In November 2022, Netflix released a four-part documentary series about it, Pepsi, Where's My Jet?, directed by Andrew Renzi. The lesson it keeps teaching is simple: a number in an ad is not automatically a deal. In this case, the more outlandish the offer looked, the less willing the court was to treat it as one.
Questions people ask
Did anyone ever get the Harrier jet from Pepsi?
No. Pepsi refused John Leonard's order, a federal judge ruled in 1999 that the commercial was not an offer, and the Second Circuit affirmed in 2000. He never received a jet.
How many Pepsi Points was the Harrier jet in the commercial?
The ad listed it at 7,000,000 Pepsi Points. Because extra points could be bought for 10 cents each, that worked out to about $700,000 on paper. According to Leonard's account in the court record, Pepsi later re-edited the ad to show 700,000,000 points.
How much does a real Harrier jet cost?
The 1999 court decision put the cost of a Harrier jet at roughly $28 million and noted that Leonard was aware of that figure.
Sources
- Leonard v. PepsiCo, Inc., 88 F. Supp. 2d 116 (S.D.N.Y. 1999)Caselaw Access Project, Harvard Law School · 1999-08-05
- Leonard v. PepsiCo, Inc., 210 F.3d 88 (2d Cir. 2000)Caselaw Access Project, Harvard Law School · 2000-04-17
- Flashback 1996: Man sues Pepsi for not giving him a Harrier JetCBS News · 2015-01-29
- Coverage of the Netflix series Pepsi, Where's My Jet?Telluride Daily Planet · 2023
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