The true story of Netflix's Pepsi, Where's My Jet? and John Leonard's legal battle

Virgin Radio

7 Dec 2022, 15:33

SPOILER ALERT: You couldn't make this up. Netflix's Pepsi, Where's My Jet? has captured the imagination of viewers with its David vs Golliath legal battle drama. The new docuseries tells the story of former student, John Leonard vs. drinks giant, PepsiCo.

The four-part documentary is based on Leonard's legal battle with the soft drinks company to claim the military plane the drinks brand promised back in the '90s when Pepsi launched an advertising campaign to rival Coca Cola, called Pepsi Stuff.

The loyalty scheme allowed customers to collect Pepsi points, which they could exchange for prizes including hats, jackets and bikes. The more points gained by popping open another Pepsi, the better and better the reward.

The previous advert showed a man in a Pepsi T-shirt turning up to school in a jet, with the tag lines "Harrier fighter" and "7,000,000 Pepsi points".

Cue John Leonard, who took the Pepsi challenge literally and racked up that exact amount of points. When he tried claim his jet prize, Pepsi refused and the court case known as the Pepsi Points Case was born.

Netflix's new docu-series tells the jaw-dropping true story of the legal battle, started in fact, by Pepsi, not Leonard, and includes interviews with him.

Where's My Jet director Andrew Renzi told the Independent: "This is just a young man who really wanted to try to reach for the stars. He wanted an adventure and it was really an uncynical, kind of slightly naive pathway to what he perceived as success. He wasn't an ambulance chaser. I believed him, and I believed in that spirit, and I loved that spirit."

Leonard told The Guardian: "Looking back on it, it was opportunistic. Absolutely. But that's not always a negative thing. And back then I wholeheartedly thought that we were going to get the jet."

“What I struggle with today is how can I have really thought that I was going to get the jet? I'm 48 years old now, and I'm now looking back on it like: what kind of dipsh*t were you, man?"

Pepsi, Where's My Jet is available on Netflix.

Here's what else is coming to the small screen soon.