[imagesource: Netflix]

Growing up, most kids will admit to wanting a jet at some point.

If you watched Top Gun in the mid to late 1980s, you know the drill.

That’s a dream that most of us give up on when reality hits home, but what if you saw an advert on telly and realised you could win one?

In 1996, college student John Leonard saw a Pepsi ad about a loyalty rewards programme and a light went on upstairs.

South Africans with an axe to grind about false advertising pop an email off to Wendy Knowler. John went one better in a battle that’s now been turned into a four-part Netflix series, Pepsi, Where’s My Jet? 

Let’s get the basics via IndieWire:

[He] went on an ambitious quest to obtain 7 million “Pepsi Points,” a loyalty program that offered merchandise for customers who bought enough Pepsi cans. In a commercial for the program, Pepsi advertised that 7 million points (equivalent to about $4.3 million in Pepsi cases) could be redeemed for an AV-8 Harrier II jet.

The Coke competitor made it even easier via some fine print in the catalog that allowed one to buy Pepsi Points for just 10 cents apiece. In this case, 15 legitimate Pepsi Points plus a check for $700,000 could theoretically get you a $30 million-plus military aircraft. Boy, they blew the math on that one.

John teamed up with a friend who had some cash to burn, Todd Hoffman, and they decided to take on the behemoth that is Pepsi.

Even though I love a true-crime series more than most, this was a really refreshing and fun break from all of that.

The series was released on November 17.

It could probably have been a three-parter and cut off some of the excess fat. I also did not expect to see Michael Avenatti, the lawyer who shot to fame for representing Stormy Daniels, make an appearance.

Still, it’s well worth a watch if you want something lighthearted amidst all the tales of woe on the streaming giant.

[source:indiewire]