[HN Gopher] Leonard vs. Pepsico, Inc
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Leonard vs. Pepsico, Inc
Author : EndXA
Score : 77 points
Date : 2023-11-10 21:41 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (en.wikipedia.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (en.wikipedia.org)
| Boogie_Man wrote:
| >The Pentagon stated that the Harrier Jet would not be sold to
| civilians without "demilitarization", which, in the case of the
| Harrier, would have included stripping it of its ability to land
| and take off vertically.[10]
|
| Thank you Pentagon,very lame!
| jordemort wrote:
| That seems to imply that there is a price at which they WILL
| sell one to a civilian, though.
| tialaramex wrote:
| Sure, civilians own all sorts of obsolete and de-commissioned
| military gear. Small arms obviously, but also tanks and
| planes.
|
| If you've got loads of obsolete tanks, of which some are
| kinda sorta working, others are mostly useful only as spares
| and your mission is to turn that into money but without
| harming national security, selling say half a dozen of them
| to a movie props company, makes lot of sense. Deactivate the
| main weapon, remove auxiliary weapons, strip out any
| sensitive materials from the interior, and it still _looks_
| like a tank on screen, but it 's not a real threat because
| it's deactivated. They can use it to shoot war movies, as
| background for politics movies, &c.
|
| Serious adversaries don't need obsolete tanks. If you're
| Russia, a working 1970s tank is of no value to you. Russia
| _have_ perfectly good tanks newer than that, and their crews
| were already trained on them. However you don 't want some
| minor power or non-government entity to buy these and re-arm
| them somewhere that can't defend itself, you don't want your
| obsolete tanks to show up in a guerilla war in South America,
| so you can guarantee that with "Not for export" type
| paperwork.
| jstarfish wrote:
| There's a place in Vegas where you can drive one around and
| crush scrapped cars.
|
| There was also a police-footage show with an episode about
| a guy who built a DIY tank-- a bulldozer with a bunch of
| cement slabs mounted to it. He terrorized a neighborhood on
| his way to demolish city hall over some grievance, beached
| it, and shot himself while police tried to breach it.
| euroderf wrote:
| If you want something you can drive around your
| neighborhood, you want an armored car with rubber tires
| (not metal treads, not rubber treads).
|
| For instance, the UK's M8 Greyhound.
| Boogie_Man wrote:
| I've wanted a mortar and mortar munitions for as long as I
| can remember, but you can't own army surplus as it's a
| "destructive device" which is bullshit if I've ever heard
| it.
| ndsipa_pomu wrote:
| I was curious about why The Pentagon would be the desired
| seller, when it's a British plane, and in my searching came
| across this little tidbit:
|
| https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/three-iconic-harrier-j...
|
| > The owner of the Harrier jump jets, former US Marines pilot
| Art Nalls, hopes wealthy British collectors will buy the trio
| of iconic jets which are the only flyable civilian versions in
| the world
| stanac wrote:
| > On November 17, 2022, a docuseries about the case titled Pepsi,
| Where's My Jet? was released on Netflix.
|
| I think it's four episodes. The only problem is that we know the
| outcome and series tries to keep you in suspense.
| styfle wrote:
| The docuseries has a lot more information than the Wikipedia
| article.
|
| For example, interviews with some of the people who worked on
| that Pepsi commercial.
|
| Not every movie is watched for the outcome alone :)
| SOLAR_FIELDS wrote:
| Yeah, the interviews with the Pepsi execs, most specifically
| the guy that was in charge of their marketing, were the
| actual most interesting part of that docuseries.
| jstarfish wrote:
| It also explored a related Filipino Pepsi promotion that
| didn't end so well. That one was heartbreaking.
| NoboruWataya wrote:
| Yes... it's a moderately interesting court case that has often
| been used to introduce law students to the concepts of offer
| and acceptance (and ancillary concepts like puffery), but I
| felt like the docuseries was trying quite hard to make the
| whole episode more interesting than it was. Maybe I am just
| jaded by all the insane financial shenanigans that have
| occurred since...
| epolanski wrote:
| I don't think the outcome is relevant to a docuseries.
|
| It's not like we watch a 9/11 doc wondering what's gonna happen
| to the twin towers or one about OJ's trial wondering whether
| he'll be judged guilty or not.
| dooglius wrote:
| There are still central questions people may have about the
| historical events in both of your examples, and that a
| documentary may shed light on. Not so with this trial.
| pests wrote:
| I think it was decent but it could have been a single episode
| or at least a 90 minute movie length doc. I felt like they were
| stretching for it to fill 4 episodes.
| Narretz wrote:
| > The only problem is that we know the outcome
|
| The promotion/lawsuit happened over 15 years ago, and this
| event is hardly ingrained in pop culture. Not to mention the
| documentary is also marketed to people outside the US. What
| makes you so confident to say "we know the outcome"?
| behringer wrote:
| I watched the series not that long ago and before that
| vaguely remember hearing that someone won a jet, a memory
| sparked by the series itself. But that's it. The series was
| great, kept me in complete suspense. Sometimes it pays to be
| uninformed!
| extraduder_ire wrote:
| I found it pretty compelling, despite knowing the outcome for
| years. Then again, I never watched tiger king, so this style of
| documentary was fresher to me.
| alberth wrote:
| 168 comments | 2-years ago
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28188929
| m463 wrote:
| This reminds me of the frequent flyer miles hacks one guy figured
| out.
|
| EDIT: here it is, the pudding guy:
|
| _David Phillips is an American civil engineer best known for
| accumulating frequent flyer miles by taking advantage of a
| promotion by Healthy Choice Foods in 1999._
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Phillips_(entrepreneur)
| mattew wrote:
| I also think of pudding guy every time something like this
| comes up.
| NeoTar wrote:
| There was someone who did something similar with Tesco (UK
| Supermarket) Clubcard Points (a reward system which, I
| believe, essentially returns essentially 1% of your
| supermarket shopping spend in return for correlating shopping
| data with your demographics !)
|
| In the early days (1997) of the system, there was a 'bonus'
| points points offer on Bananas, sufficient that the cost of
| the bananas was offset by the rewards. Although searching for
| the article, the benefit was only 8%, and the total reward
| was only about 25 GBP (about 40 USD at 1997 exchange rates)
|
| https://www.independent.co.uk/news/banana-economics-
| buy-942l...
| thih9 wrote:
| Was there any mention of the jet elsewhere, e.g. in some printed
| t&c? If it was only in a random tv ad, then I side with Pepsico
| too. And I wish I had a spare 700k for a random stunt like this.
| styfle wrote:
| No, the jet was only in the commercial (according to the
| documentary).
|
| They thought they had a case since Pepsi "forgot" to put a
| fine-print disclaimer at the bottom like most other
| commercials.
| stork19 wrote:
| More like $1.3M in today's dollars.
| jwilk wrote:
| > I wish I had a spare 700k for a random stunt like this.
|
| The guy didn't have that much either: "Leonard [...] convinced
| five investors to lend him a total of $700,000".
| epolanski wrote:
| Man should've been the CEO founder talking to angels and
| VCS..
| paulpauper wrote:
| so a total loss. makes even cryptocurrency safe by comparison
| azeemba wrote:
| No loss. Pepsi never cashed the check
| thih9 wrote:
| Some loss -- there were likely some lawsuit costs.
| olalonde wrote:
| There's a quite entertaining documentary about the saga on
| Netflix, "Pepsi, Where's My Jet?".
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| Was it really that entertaining? Don't get me wrong, I liked
| the story, and maybe I might have ADHD, but I feel like it just
| dragged on unnecessarily just to squeeze more episodes out of
| what was a pretty short story:
|
| - kid sees pepsi ad offering Harrier Jet for 6 million Pepsi
| points
|
| - kid talks a wealthy business-man friend into a plan of
| getting 6 milion Pepsi points
|
| - Pepsi tries to strike deal with them into giving up on the
| jet in exchange for $MILLION USD
|
| - kid says no to deal and takes Pepsi to court for the jet
|
| - Pepsi gets corporate friendly judge that sides with them and
| the kid and his business-man friend loose
|
| THE END, we don't need the back story of every character and
| their mom, just to turn this story into 3-6 episodes.
| function_seven wrote:
| This is a classic Netflix move. 4-, 6-, and 8-episode
| "docuseries" that could easily be a single movie. Lots of
| padding to drag it all out.
| FirmwareBurner wrote:
| Honestly, this is where small youtubers win over Netflix.
| They get to the point and make a 10-30 minute video about a
| topic that would be 6+ episodes on Netflix. And Youtube is
| basically free, or a small subscription.
| cookie_monsta wrote:
| I think this is the first time I have seen YouTubers
| offered as an example of people who get to the point
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| Indeed. 10-30 minute video is _way too long_ for this
| story anyway, and the only reason YouTubers make videos
| this long, is because they round up to magic monetization
| thresholds (first one is 8 minutes, IIRC?).
| function_seven wrote:
| There's definitely two worlds on Youtube. (1) The good
| ones who put out those 10 or 20-minute videos that just
| get to it. (2) The rest of them who have useless 1-minute
| intros, followed by 3 minutes of "Today I'm going to show
| you X, and Y, and you'll be shocked at how Z doesn't do
| what you think. But first..."
|
| I've built up a pretty good subscription list that
| doesn't have (2)'s in it.
| paulpauper wrote:
| waiting for the Cold Fusion episode about this, which gets 3
| million views
| dougSF70 wrote:
| There was a window of time in which marketing execs designed
| promotions without testing the mechanic...the "Hoover flights to
| the USA promotion" that ran in the UK in the 90s was similarly
| gamed and resulted in Hoover UK entering administration IIRC,
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hoover_free_flights_promotion
| OliveMate wrote:
| It was disastrously successful to the point where 'hoover' has
| been synonymous with 'vaccuum cleaner' ever since over here!
| roarcher wrote:
| The TV commercial:
| https://youtu.be/ZdackF2H7Qc?feature=shared&t=13
| Animats wrote:
| There's at least one flyable Harrier in private ownership.[1] But
| it wasn't in private ownership and flyable when this case was
| decided. Used military jets aren't that hard to come by.[2] It's
| the restoration and maintenance that get you.
|
| [1] https://artnalls.com/team-shar-is-alive/
|
| [2] https://robbreport.com/motors/aviation/gallery/fighter-
| jets-...
| oh_sigh wrote:
| Ruled on by Kimba Wood, the same judge who destroyed Limewire.
| Some judges just don't know how to have fun.
| SeanAnderson wrote:
| IANAL, but this judgement seems really odd to me when I contrast
| it with the judgement made against Red Bull's use of "Red Bull
| gives you wings."
|
| To me, it seems less far-fetched to believe that one could redeem
| an excessive amount of points for an expensive product than to
| believe consuming a drink would _actually_ give one wings.
|
| More broadly, though, I don't know which side I favor. Letting
| advertisements be a little cheeky seems like it brightens the
| world, but the false advertising line seems quite hard to pin
| down.
| cowsup wrote:
| The lawsuit against Red Bull was not _actually_ about gaining
| physical wings, but rather, the fact that Red Bull implied
| their drink was a super energy drink with that slogan and
| related materials, when in reality, it was about as energy-
| fueling as a cup of coffee [0]. This court case, like the
| McDonald's Hot Coffee case, are commonly twisted out of context
| to sound so absurd and frivolous, when in reality there's quite
| a good reason for it.
|
| [0] https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/red-bull-settles-false-
| adve...
| SeanAnderson wrote:
| I don't feel this explains Red Bull's response to the
| lawsuit, then?
|
| Red Bull still show ads with the slogan. I saw one on Twitch
| yesterday. The only difference is now there's three i's in
| wings. So it's just "Red Bull gives you wiiings."
|
| I thought that edit was to try and make it clear that the
| wings were in jest. It seemed similar to Pepsi Co's "Just
| Kidding" addition to their jet offer.
|
| If it was really about false advertising and not the
| implication itself... then shouldn't the ads either stop
| entirely or continue without modification?
|
| EDIT: oh, maybe I am completely off-base here. It looks like
| the slogan always had three iii's and I'm just assuming it
| changed in response.
| ApolloFortyNine wrote:
| The coffee one where it's brewed between 195-205 yet people
| say keeping it at 180 was negligence?
|
| That's always bugged me ever since I made pour over,
| McDonald's essentially heated their coffee to the temperature
| it'd be if it was made fresh. Sure it was hotter than
| competitors, but it was hardly an impossible temperature for
| coffee to be. It's literally brewed hotter than they served
| it.
| whatshisface wrote:
| I am not sure how that analogy is supposed to work, would
| you mind if I handed you a knife at 900F when they're
| forged around 1000F and above?
| dfsalkjasflkj wrote:
| Yeah I mean sunlight is made at 10,340 F and human beings
| sometimes complain about the heat in the summer.
| extraduder_ire wrote:
| It wasn't negligence.
|
| Internal emails were found during discovery explicitly
| describing their strategy of keeping the coffee that hot so
| that fewer customers would avail of the free refills,
| because by the time it had cooled enough to comfortably
| drink the majority of customers would leave the store.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > but it was hardly an impossible temperature for coffee to
| be
|
| Yes, its true that the law (the things enforced by
| government, not "laws of nature", which are unrelated
| despite the similarity of name) _generally_ prohibits
| things which are seen as undesirable but possible, and _is
| far less concerned_ with prohibiting things which are
| actually impossible.
| Guvante wrote:
| Don't confuse the brew temperature and the serving
| temperature they aren't the same thing.
|
| Coffee grounds are at room temperature (when properly
| brewing) meaning that the temperature of the actual coffee
| is significantly less. It might be as high as 180 but
| doubtful fresh brewed coffee is any hotter (I would bet it
| is lower but not willing to test).
|
| Additionally McDonald's got in trouble for intentionally
| harming it's consumers. When discussing internally about
| incidents of burning executives thought that the cost of
| paying for medical bills was less than the cost of refills.
|
| Aka they said "we know this will harm people but ensuring
| people can't get free refills is more important".
| PH95VuimJjqBqy wrote:
| It harmed that woman in a very bad way, that should be
| enough to convince anyone that it was entirely too hot.
|
| Then there's the fact that they KNEW and did it anyway.
| qingcharles wrote:
| So Coke had a similar auction thing and I quickly realized that
| the top prizes could be nabbed for cheap because it would take
| people forever to collect enough ringpulls and mail them in so
| they could bid on things. So my friends and I cleared the entire
| CITY of Coca-Cola. Every grocery store. Pallets of it.
|
| This was just one de-ringpulling session of about 800 cans here:
|
| https://imgur.com/a/kE0djNt
|
| This is what happened next though... (spoiler: I didn't get my
| merch)
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36989718
| oarla wrote:
| Very clever! They should have hired you to run future
| campaigns.
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