[Music] hello everybody and welcome back to business blaze I am your boy with the blaze Simon I really am a man with the blaze because I don't know what what age you become middle-aged but I must be getting there right like I know why for the kids and I definitely look middle-age because when people find out that I'm recently 33 just turned 33 they're like dude you look like a 50 lanai Thanks you're getting too old for this [ __ ] um Dark Gods this one I don't even want to do this video I don't know why I'm here sometimes I have to make videos because it's like every video hey Simon it Simon hey Simon did you hear about Pepsi going away a Harrier Jump Jet Simon Simon Simon did you hear Pepsi they they had this competition where they gave away a Harrier Jump shams have no I made a video about it on my channel but sometimes you guys won't leave me the alone until I make a video and so here I am making the guy who tried to claim a Harrier Jump Jet from Pepsi it didn't go well I'll try to pretend that I'm entertained throughout this whole video you ready but when I was a kid choosing a back when I was a kid oh this is not me if you're new here you're probably wondering what the [ __ ] is going on in fact you've probably already kicked off because you're like this I don't need to watch some guy who smoked crack make a video on YouTube I haven't smoked crack smash that dislike button Danny rice there's a script I read it Sam the mammalogists add some means Brian the mean accountants who is not employee of business plays he he just goes in the comments and I'm tripping over my cables here he accounts up all the memes like an absolute legend but Brian I should I'll send you some free merch Brian sent me an email if you wants a free much I don't know how I'll arrange that but I can if anyone else would like much just go to purge the merch purC h overmuch co not PR CH as in like a bird would perch on something because that will take you to a rick roll oh my god we should get on with a video you can see that I'm procrastinating because well I don't want to do this back when I was a kid choosing a breakfast cereal in the supermarket I'll usually involves a lot of intense consideration the decision rarely had anything to do with the quality or taste of the Syria itself it was more to do with the fabulous free gifts that you were promised if you saved up enough tokens from the back of the packet sometimes the free gift even came in with the cereal which was cool some of the packets actually had free plastic toys buried somewhere deep within the cereal itself of course they did and he just wrap it I just repeat everything Danny says or more Danny repeats everything I say but God were on the same page but you don't see so much of that kind of thing these days I'm the manufacturers moved away from the concept when they realized that their target audience were choking to death on the crap he-man figures at the breakfast table no one ever choked on this let's stop worrying about all of this and put the toys back in the cereal because it was fun why do we have to suck the fun out of everything but I was always more interested in the higher value gifts which you usually had to cut out and save the tokens printed on each packet until you had collected enough to send off and claim the price I remember this as well and the bigger the box of cereal the more tokens you get on the back I grew up I was one of four siblings so my parents would always buy the biggest box of cereal like you know three kilograms of honey nut cheerios or whatever a big motherfucks and there would be like eight tokens on the side if you like sweet god I could go for a bowl of cereal right now and I would happily spend weeks munching my way through even the most foul of breakfast cereals if it meant that I could get my hands on a book a record or two sets of bike reflectors a pair of medieval oculars or the Pink Panther five-in-one Spy Kids which sounded amazing that the reality was a crushing disappointment which wasn't fits to be shoved inside a recycled Christmas cracker for orphan children Jesus Christ was able we could just say it was bad Danny couldn't we but that's why Danny is a writer and I am a reader what's up with those you know in the back of comic books or whatever I don't think I ever saw this but it was always like you know and you'd see it in movies or whatever it'd be like x-ray specs and it'd be like you could send off your you know $2 or whatever tell me Americans if this is actually a thing because I've just seen it in films at the back of the comedy book maybe this thing gonna be like send off the $2 and you get your free x-ray your x-ray glasses and obviously they don't work because if you were getting x-ray glasses all your friends would get cancer which you know is not brilliant there'd be lawsuits so I mean they don't work so what do you just get you get like a pair of regular glasses that don't work how is that legal I initially thought that John Leonard sounded like my kind of guy who's John Leonard he was a 21 year old business unit from New York who very much like myself had his eye on the bigger prize John wasn't interested in the pencil toppers the glow-in-the-dark stickers or the novelty spoons he dared to dream even bigger than the Pink Panther five in one spy kit how dare anyone bigger than that how dare you John Leonard was chasing the Harrier Jump Jet for the full story we have to go back to 1996 when PepsiCo launched their Pepsi stuff campaign the idea was that you collected Pepsi points with every candle bottle of Pepsi that you bought if you really drink yourself City with the fizzy stuff you'd quickly get fat and all your teeth would start to fall out but on the plus side there's a plus side free dental care that was one of the prizes it wasn't really allegedly you'd also get to redeem your points for a choice of spectacular products from paid from the hallowed pages of the catalogue you'd have to drink a lot of Pepsi to be able to claim anything half-decent though if you fancied a t-shirt it after down 75 cans of Pepsi a kid helped before you could accrue enough points to your hands on it that's a lot of Pepsi if you are more interested in cooler the jacket that would involve drinking quite a quite staggering 1,450 cans burst and consuming nuts 69 thousand 600 grams of sugar in the process better go for extra-large just to be on the safe side surely no one drank that much you'd be like yeah you got a leather jacket but I mean how much is a can of Pepsi you like pound two pound two pounds so you're spending somewhere between one and a half thousand pounds and three thousand pounds on a leather jacket which is probably allegedly a [ __ ] it and probably as a Pepsi logo on it naturally perhaps he launched a big expensive TV commercial to help promote the new campaign and it was this fun 30-second ad that caught the attention of John Leonard I'm definitely gonna call in John Lennon at some point throughout this video I'm just warning you ahead of time that's just reminded me of Yoko Ono and now I feel sad because I thought of Yoko Ono and now you're thinking of Yoko Ono I'm sorry [Music] the commercial was surprisingly funny for Pepsi at this point usually just three millions of dollars at Michael Jackson to appear in their commercials and then set his hair on fire and then set fire to his hair really but they appeared to have their mighty corporate tongue in their mighty corporate cheek when they were storyboarding this particular commercial which depicts a cool kid waking up the morning getting ready for school as we see each item of the kids clothing a coupon pop star pop pops up on the screen detailing how many Pepsi points it cost him so he puts on his sunglasses the message on the screen reads shades 175 Pepsi points and similar captions pop up when we see his t-shirt and his leather jacket I assume this kid was massively obese and also rich because his parents must have bought him a lot of Pepsi for the climax of the commercial we cut to a scene of a school campus where we see the same team capturing the attention of his teenagers and fellow students by landing a giant [ __ ] off Harrier Jump Jet on the school tarmac just next to the bike racks sure beats the bus now the more Pepsi you drink the more you're going to get sure beat the boss laughs the slightly annoying kid as he disembarked from the craft and a caption flashes up on the screen which reads Harry a fighter 7,000,000 Pepsi Points okay I know this story so thoroughly nothing surprises me anymore but you can guess where this is going with old Johnny Leonard at this point I would imagine that over 99.9% of the viewing audience would have realized that this was Pepsi just being playful I would say it's definitely more than 99.9% because that would be one in a thousand people thinking that you can actually get a Pepsi jump-jet and one in a thousand people and not that done I'm taking off my shoes because I love to wear shoes at work if I don't want to I can do what I want some people might have found it a little bit far-fetched and questioned whether the school safety regulations would have really permitted the landing of a jet powered aircraft on the ground spoiler alert know just know I actually made a video a while back about whether you can land a helicopter wherever you want and the answer is yes it's an emergency otherwise no you can't just land your helicopter wherever you want you can't just fly to McDonald's and be like and landing it although they did in that movie Richie Rich but he probably got some FAA violation or whatever but on the whole most of the viewing audience would have got the joke and realized that a fizzy drinks company wouldn't really be offering a Harrier Jump Jet in their catalog of goodies that curly it wasn't Pepsi scene anyway everyone knows the Pepsi is far more interested in fleets at warship warships I figure if I'd never made that Pepsi Navy video which also turns out they didn't have a Navy it was basically just the press getting it wrong which as I always say on this is really surprising because the press always gets things completely right never exaggerate and never blows things out of proportion z' because why would they what possible reason could they have for that other than other than money however Jon Leonard's response to the commercial was a little different to most instead of laughing along with Pepsi he thoughtfully stroked his chin something like this and reflected on how 7 million Percy points for a Harrier jet is not actually that bad of a deal and it didn't even necessarily involve drinking that much Pepsi you see clever old John had taken time to check out the small print customers only ever really needed to get their hands on a minimum of 50 Pepsi point labels from cans or bottles after this you can purchase additional Pepsi points for just 10 cents each so unless you really like the taste of Pepsi you were never expected to buy over a thousand cans to get that nice leather Jackie you would just send off however many Pepsi products you managed to collect along with a check to cover all of the extra Pepsi points you needed to claim your reward at this point you realize that the marketing team had made a bit of a blunder with the spoof pricing of the Harrier jet 7 million Pepsi points may sound like a ridiculously high number but John quickly realized after each one 15 cans of Pepsi that he only needed just under $700,000 worth of Pepsi points for just at just 10 cents each to claim the Jets which is not bad considering with your average Harrier Jump Jet at the time was fetching somewhere in the region of 20 million dollars ok I do I remember this as I said like I've done this before but that is pretty [ __ ] epic I'm sorry I keep touching my nose I'm I have allergies or something my nose is really itchy today if Pepsi had paid attention during maths class they would have realized that 200 million Pepsi points would have been a far more sensible figure for the aircraft and it could have saved them a lot of legal wrangling down the line after collecting 15 Pepsi point labels John Leonard had to figure out how he's gonna pay for the other six million nine hundred ninety nine thousand nine hundred and eighty-five points that he required to claim the Jets quite remarkably managed to raise 700 grams very quickly by asking friends and acquaintances to invest in his cunning plan it's also like you gotta become an arms dealer I feel like this is like that war dogs movie where those two guys are like oh that's become ours dealers there is like it's like funny Lord of war I don't know what it is about arms dealers movies but I love them I'm like yes even though they're always like a bit morally bankrupt often end up in jail or in a lot of trouble but it's like it's pretty fun there's a parallel universe out there where I'm an arms dealer weighing up Kalashnikovs by the pound on March the 28th 1996 he stuffed his order form for a Harrier Jump Jet into an envelope along with a check for 700,000 $8.50 the extra $10 was very important as this was the price listed for the Pepsi stuff catalog for postage and packing on all the products John Mayer felt a bit silly if it forgotten that part he perhaps should have been slightly concerned that the catalog itself made no mention of the Harrier jet it was all t-shirts and baseball caps and it but he still went ahead and posted his order anyway then he went back home and waited patiently for his new Harrier Jump Jet to arrive I can't imagine he actually expected that to happen this is all just the game it's I mean I know the ending but let's pretend that I don't know the ending this is all just speculative speculating that I mean perhaps he's not gonna require Harrier gen send it to him that it's gonna end up in some sort of settlements where he's not gonna get 20 million but he will get some amount that is higher than the 700,000 be put in anyway it would have been fascinating to witness the reaction the poor soul at Pepsi who opened the envelope at the other end in all likelihood they probably thought John Leonard was either just jolly pranks he was taking the piss or a complete blithering idiot in need of medical attention either way they composed up quite a polite and kind-hearted response when they returned the check and the Pepsi Points label pram sensing that John might be a bit more bit simple they wrote him a letter which explained that the Harrier Jump Jet had only been included in the TV commercials as a joke the ad was just meant to be a slice of humorous and entertaining marketing for the Pepsi generation they also thoughtfully included a fee free a few free Pepsi coupons in the package as a goodwill gesture all those have is unlikely that the man who managed to drum up 700 grand of investments in no time he would get overly excited about a few crappy Pepsi coupons in fact John Leonard wasn't very impressed with a response at all he was so miffed that he got his team of underworked lawyers to prepare the next communication with Pepsi they wrote we got a quote your letter of May the 7th 1996 is totally unacceptable we have reviewed the video tape of the Pepsi stuff commercial and it clearly offers the new Harrier jet for 7 million Pepsi points our client followed your rules explicitly this is a formal demands that you honor your commitment and make immediate arrangements to transfer the new Harrier jet to our clients if we do not receive transfer instructions within 10 business days of the date of this letter you will leave us no choice but to file an appropriate action against Pepsi it could be argued that this was a slightly ungrateful response to a corporate company corporation company giving you some free coupons for nothing it's not clear if Pepsi ever got them back but the letter it clearly got them a bit riled it must have been quite tempting for them to tell the lawyers that their clients can shove his cheque and 700 grams up his ass and maybe send them a few free Pepsi t-shirts to help soften the blow a little bit but instead they politely pointed out that they found it difficult to believe how anyone could take the commercial seriously and concluded that no reasonable person could possibly argue with John Leonard's analysis of the adverts look I know how this ends I keep saying this I keep saying this but like how did how did these how do you really think this is gonna go it's Pepsi they got a giant team of lawyers more interestingly perhaps he made a very significant change to the TV commercial itself they didn't cut out the Harrier jet joke all that CGI wizardry had cost them a small fortune to produce instead they simply changed the caption at the end from 7 million Pepsi points to 700 million Pepsi points it seems the PepsiCo's mouths were still a little bit off but at least this was a step in the right direction just to be sure they also flashed are they just kidding disclaimer at the close in the closing seconds of the ad just so now John Lennon has consider his next move it probably crossed his mind to go back to his circle of investors and ask them to come up with another 70 million dollars so that he I'd have another go at claiming the jet while also raising 70 million dollars is a lot harder and then he's gonna be paying massively over the odds of the Jessop EPS you would probably be like yeah sure we'll arrange that and net that and take the extra 50 mil thanks but eventually he decided to get his lawyers to file a suit against Pepsi for a breach of contract misleading advertising fraud and fraud then deceptive is like night breach of contract no misleading advertising maybe fraud no deceptive and unfair trade practices maybe for reasons that I can't quite fathom the court proceedings were launched in Miami despite the fact that John lat Lenin Lenin I told you I'd do it Leonard was living in Washington a PepsiCo is based in New York well yeah because you can choose where you pursue a lawsuit where there's get a bit like he probably chose Miami because for whatever reason the laws in Florida are gonna be more conductive to the case that he wants to pursue like it's often done it seems that a court in Miami couldn't quite understand either they declare that the case had to do with them directed its that be sent to New York and of course they can do that but the so drawn in Miami came at a cost to John Lennon who ended up having to pay eighty eight thousand dollars to cover Pepsi's wasted legal fees oh that's a lot of money when the case rolled into New York and starting to attract headlines the public mood seemed to fake in to favor John Leonard of course it did because he's a legend but also he's not correct advertising executive David Verte Colline claims that a consumer like Leonard should be celebrated not sued he's not being sued he's suing Pepsi you have a guy here who's done something pretty clever I'll give him a tour across the country in a Harrier jet I'll turn it into a TV commercial yes pretty legit the BBC correspondent John Blackstone canvassed opinions on the streets of New York and found that most people were in agreement I think you should get the jet said Victor [ __ ] convict calf Jesus Christ what if he drank them as perhaps much Pepsi then he probably should said Harry bonds the Missy dude Danny do you always choose the people with the most hard to pronounce it's America there's gotta be like a Joe Bloggs who obviously didn't quite grasp what happens but never minds maybe he is goofy said Walter of I cook more okay Danny I know you're doing on purpose now but they're making those claims if they can't back them up then they shouldn't be putting them on out I should probably just admit that I made those names off as they weren't revealed on there but the sentiments were very genuine thanks Danny awesome PepsiCo claims that the case should be thrown out sometimes I just have to get the coffee in my sentence and I have to read while I'm doing it Pepsi says should be thrown out did drama actually have a case it could be argued that the Harrier Jump Jet was promoted in exactly the same way as genuine Pepsi products like the t-shirts and leather jacket and their what and as that was originally noticed showing on screen or a also John Leonard's have ever prick allegedly because he's the reason that when you listen to a TV commercial or like radio or whatever or you know you've just sign up to like oh yeah I'd love to get delivering it's like you got up you know here's a 16-page terms and conditions he's the reason the Pepsi has to be like not a guarantee blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah it goes on for life and then finally it's over and you're like yeah at legal disclaimers thanks John Leonard you absolute hero as it was originally no disclaimer shown on screen or flashing this flashing message screaming this is just a joke you massive Bell ends it could be perceived that Pepsi goes offer for the Harrier jet was as serious as there is an old woman outside hello old woman John Leonard's arguments was that the commercial promised a reward for a specific Act in this case collecting or buying 7 million Pepsi points to redeem a Harrier jet but the court ruled that the commercial was not specific enough and was more of an invitation to treat I told you viewers that viewers had been directed to the Pepsi stuff catalog for further guidance on how to redeem their Pepsi points for products and of course the Harrier Jump Jet was notable by its absence from the catalogue the court also ruled that no objection no objective person could reasonably have concluded that the commercial liked actually offered consumers a Harrier jet the official notes from the judge turned out to be a hugely entertaining read as he pointed out that he was essentially being asked to explain why the climax of the advert was clearly fantastical and why Pepsi stroke was funny trying to explain why a joke is funny is obviously a challenge in itself but it's do ditional dissection of the ad probably ended up being more entertaining than the actual ads and we have a long quota so I'm just gonna read that the callow youth featured in the commercial is a highly improbable pilots and one who could barely be trusted with the keys to his parents car much less the prized artifact much less the much less the poem prized aircraft of the United States Marine Corps wouldn't that be like one of those f-16s rather than checking the fuel gauges on his aircraft the teenager spends his precious pre-flight minutes preening the youths concern for his coiffure how do you say that word is like the hair one Anika appears to extend to his flying without a helmet the teenagers comment that flying a Harrier jet to school sure beats the bus evinces a improbable in so oh my god this judge uses words that I just don't know evinces a improbable insouciant attitude toward the relative difficulty and danger of piloting a fighter plane in a residential area as opposed to taking public transportation the judge concluded that fully loaded the Harrier can float just like a butterfly and sting like a bee albeit a roaring 14 tonne butterfly and to be with nine thousand two hundred pounds of bombs and this in light of the Harrier jets well-documented function in attacking and destroying surface and air targets armed reconnaissance and air interdiction and offensive and defensive anti-aircraft warfare depiction of such a Jets as a way to get to school in the morning is clearly not serious ya know judgey but that is an excellent judgment exactly how much John Leonard lost in legal fees is not clear well it's gonna be over eighty-eight grands that's for sure but it was probably a small fortune but does but it does beg a question what exactly was he planning out was he really hoping to get no he's hoping to get a settlement he was really how was he really opened his hands on the Harrier jet was he really just trying to make a point or get his name in the papers what would he be done with the Jets if Pepsi had ended up selling it to him sending it to him through the post for a ten dollar shipping fee was he just a raving loony maybe we'll never know but it's interesting to note that the check he posted for just over seven hundred thousand dollars was not drawn from his own accounts but from that of his lawyers so in other words John Leonard was anticipating a legal battle right from the very beginning what a surprise but you can't help feeling that all of this just turned out to be a very expensive mistake for John Leonard and his investors and I'm sure his investors weren't very happy as they will watch their money get pissed away on legal fees maybe he should have aimed his sights a little lower when browsing the Pepsi pass at cataloging on for the Sony Ninni disc player I bet he only drinks coke now yeah this like protracted legal battle the cost in probably six figures in legal fees it's gonna leave a pretty sour taste in his mouth and you're just going to a store it every time you see Pepsi Oh like I had time I lost 200 grand still paying that off bonus fact even if PepsiCo had honored the offer in the commercial and given John Leonard a Harrier Jump Jet he may Stella felt slightly disappointed when it arrived on his doorstep the Pentagon has revealed that Harrier jets are just not for sale to the public in any fly ball shape before selling such aircraft of PepsiCo the jet would have to be completely demilitarized stripping it of its guns and missile capabilities and rendered unable to perform a vertical takeoff so John Leonard would only have received a pretty useless bit of kit anyway for his 700 grams oh I hate it when this happens I should check this before I look at that waste of paper although it probably would have still looks quite cool on the driveway next of a speedboat if you get that joke thank you for being an OG business blazed legends if you enjoyed this video smash that like button if you didn't smash that dislike button you're welcome to this is business place where we blaze I've been your boy with the place Simon Danny Sam Brian the meme accountants thank you all and I'll see you next time pooch the much doc OH
