John Leonard did not get the Harrier jet from Pepsi. He was offered settlement fees of almost $1 million but John refused to take it.
The judge ruled in favor of Pepsi and John returned empty-handed and disappointed after being unsuccessful at the court.
The whole Leonard Vs. PepsiCo started in the 1990s when Pepsi offered a military-grade Harrier jet for the person who would have 7,000,000 points. There were also other items like baseball caps for 60 points, T-shirts for 80 points, and mountain bikes for thousands. A fountain drink was considered one point, a two-liter bottle was two points and a twelve-pack was worth of five points.
His initial plan was to store the cans in warehouses later, but his friend Todd Hoffman dismissed the plan and came across a huge loophole in the campaign. The fine print in the campaign catalog mentioned that the customers had to submit only 15 points that were collected by themselves and the rest could be bought for 10 cents. Todd gave the required capital of $700,008.50 to him seeing how much he wanted the jet.
The commercial did not have any message or notice saying that getting the jet was a joke. So when John was dismissed saying that the commercial was a joke and offered him a fistful of coupons for free Pepsi. Both he and his friend was very upset and filed a lawsuit against the company. They called upon a lawyer named Larry Schantz and the trial began.
The lawyer argued that Pepsi was obligated to give him the jet as it was clearly stated that was the prize and there was no fine print or disclaimer or it was a joke.
Pepsi offered both of them a settlement of $750,000 but they refused the money because he wanted the Harrier jet. Another lawyer, named Michael Avenatti then joined the team and attempted to bring public pressure to win in the court. However, the court did not work in their favor.
In the end, the judge ruled the court favored Pepsi and stated that a reasonable person would not think that the jet was attainable just by claiming the reward points.
They did not get the military-grade Harrier jet or the settlement fees that were offered before by Pepsi. However, they did make an impact as Pepsi changed the number of points needed to secure the free jet from 7,000,000 to 700,000,000 the first time and later changed it to the number followed by the saying Just Kidding. They lead to an era where disclaimers became an important part of commercials.
