{"id":5306,"date":"2023-01-20T12:50:49","date_gmt":"2023-01-20T01:50:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bprworld.com\/?p=5306"},"modified":"2023-01-20T13:08:03","modified_gmt":"2023-01-20T02:08:03","slug":"if-youre-going-to-prank-your-listeners-make-sure-theyre-in-on-the-joke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/bprworld.com\/de\/news\/if-youre-going-to-prank-your-listeners-make-sure-theyre-in-on-the-joke\/","title":{"rendered":"If You\u2019re Going to Prank Your Listeners, Make Sure They\u2019re in on the Joke!!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>By David Kidd, BPR<\/em><\/p>\n<p><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-3421\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bprworld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/dk-300x300.png?resize=131%2C131\" alt=\"\" width=\"131\" height=\"131\" \/><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.netflix.com\/tudum\/articles\/pepsi-wheres-my-jet-release-date-cast-news\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The new Netflix documentary<\/a>, \u201cPepsi, Where\u2019s My Jet\u201d, is the story of a guy called John Leonard who sued Pepsi for false advertising. While the move backfired on John, the court case shaped advertising laws forever.<\/p>\n<p>In 1995, Leonard was a 20-year-old student in the United States, where he was coaching little league football and dreaming of having a successful business. But, a commercial from Pepsi changed the course of his life.<\/p>\n<p>The 90s were all about the cola wars and in a bid to steer Gen Xers to choose\u00a0Pepsi over Coca-Cola, Pepsi introduced Pepsi Points, which could be redeemed for Pepsi merchandise.<\/p>\n<p><em>What could Pepsi Points buy?<\/em><\/p>\n<p>In order to understand the difficulty of buying merchandise with points, basic maths needs to be applied. The amount of points a customer would receive was:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A fountain drink = one point<\/li>\n<li>Two-litre bottle = two points<\/li>\n<li>12 pack = five points<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>After months of saving for points customers would be able to buy the following:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Baseball caps = 60 points<\/li>\n<li>T-shirts = 80 points<\/li>\n<li>Mountain bikes = thousands<\/li>\n<li>And the prize that took Leonard to court\u2026. a <strong>military grade Harrier jet<\/strong> = a whopping 7 million points<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Now, neither the radio or TV commercials contained any fine print, disclaimer or legal notice telling viewers it was a joke.\u00a0There was no Harrier jet. But unaware of this, Leonard was on a mission to get the jet, and found five investors to help him achieve his goal.<\/p>\n<p>It was too expensive to buy all that Pepsi to get the 7 million points. So, Leonard found a loophole in the fine print. Pepsi Points could be purchased for ten cents a-piece. With the help of his investors, he sent off a $700,008.50 cheque \u2013 and sat back waiting for his Harrier jet to arrive.<\/p>\n<p>Weeks later, Pepsi responded saying the inclusion of the Harrier jet in the commercial was nothing more than a joke. But Leonard didn\u2019t want to take no as an answer. After filing of legal suits and counter suits, Pepsi offered Leonard a settlement of $750,000, but he rejected it as he was still on a mission to claim the jet. The Pentagon even got involved. In September 1997, the Pentagon announced that Harrier jets were not for sale and would need to be &#8220;demilitarized&#8221; before being offered to the public, which included disabling their ability to conduct vertical take-offs and landings.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, in 1999, the judge ruled in favour of Pepsi, saying no reasonable person would think a Harrier jet was attainable by claiming Pepsi reward points.<\/p>\n<p>Leonard might not have received his Harrier jet, but he made history as he changed the way advertising was presented, with disclaimers now an integral part of many commercials.<\/p>\n<p>Outside of April Fool\u2019s pranks, duping your listeners with false statements or promises that might seem hilarious to you is a dangerous road to go down. Make sure EVERYONE is in on the joke. Remember the Hooters waitress who thought she\u2019d won a Toyota but instead the restaurant chain gave her a Toy Yoda. She won enough money in the court case to buy any Toyota she wanted\u2026. and then some!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By David Kidd, BPR The new Netflix documentary, \u201cPepsi, Where\u2019s My Jet\u201d, is the story [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5307,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5306","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorised","category-featured"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/bprworld.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/pexels-pixabay-40907.jpg?fit=2100%2C1365","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/bprworld.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5306","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/bprworld.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/bprworld.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bprworld.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bprworld.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5306"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/bprworld.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5306\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5334,"href":"http:\/\/bprworld.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5306\/revisions\/5334"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bprworld.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5307"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/bprworld.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bprworld.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/bprworld.com\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}