Pepsi Number Fever

In February 1992, Pepsi Philippines (PCPPI) announced they would print numbers ranging from 001 to 999{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=SxMNAQAAMAAJ |title=Asiaweek, Volume 20 |date=1994 |work=Asiaweek |publisher=Asiaweek Limited |page=47 |language=en |access-date=June 21, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231014035858/https://books.google.com/books?id=SxMNAQAAMAAJ |archive-date=October 14, 2023 |url-status=live}} inside the caps (crowns) of Pepsi, 7-Up, Mountain Dew and Mirinda bottles. Certain numbers could be redeemed for prizes, which ranged from 100 pesos (about US$4) to 1 million pesos for a grand prize, roughly US$40,000 in 1992, at the time equivalent to 611 times the average monthly salary in the Philippines.{{Cite web |last=Maysh |first=Jeff |date=2020-08-04 |title=The Inside Story of Pepsi’s Philippines Bottle Contest Fiasco |url=https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-08-04/the-inside-story-of-pepsi-s-philippines-bottle-contest-fiasco |url-status=live |archive-url=https://archive.today/20200804135657/https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-08-04/the-inside-story-of-pepsi-s-philippines-bottle-contest-fiasco |archive-date=August 4, 2020 |access-date=2024-11-16 |website=Bloomberg Businessweek}}

Pepsi allocated a total of US$2 million for prizes. Marketing specialist Pedro Vergara based Pepsi Number Fever on similar, moderately successful promotions previously held in Latin America, Vergara's geographic area of expertise.{{cite book |last1=White |first1=Michael |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=harIxyE4L-sC&pg=PA100 |title=A Short Course in International Marketing Blunders: Mistakes Made by Companies that Should Have Known Better |date=2002 |publisher=World Trade Press |isbn=978-1-885073-60-0 |page=100 |language=en |access-date=June 20, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231014035858/https://books.google.com/books?id=harIxyE4L-sC&pg=PA100#v=onepage&q&f=false |archive-date=October 14, 2023 |url-status=live}} A similar promotion known as Numeromania later ran in Poland in 1995; however, it did not cause as much controversy.{{Cite web |last=DaeL |date=2019-01-13 |title=Niedzielne Fiszki: Pepsi kontra Filipiny |url=https://fsgk.pl/2019/01/niedzielne-fiszki-pepsi-kontra-filipiny/ |access-date=2024-12-07 |website=FSGK.PL |language=pl-PL}}

Pepsi Number Fever was initially wildly successful, increasing Pepsi's monthly sales from $10 million to $14 million and its market share from 19.4% to 24.9%. The winning numbers were announced on television nightly. By May, 51,000 prizes had been redeemed, including 17 grand prizes,{{cite web |last=Rossen |first=Jake |date=September 27, 2018 |title=The Computer Error That Led to a Country Declaring War on Pepsi |url=https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/558202/pepsi-number-fever-promotion-failure-philippines |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180928012529/https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/558202/pepsi-number-fever-promotion-failure-philippines |archive-date=September 28, 2018 |access-date=June 13, 2020 |publisher=Mental Floss |language=en}} and the campaign was extended beyond the originally planned end date of May 8 by another 5 weeks.

File:Pepsi Number Fever 349 winning bottle cap.jpg

On May 25, 1992, the ABS-CBN evening news program TV Patrol announced that the grand prize number for that day was 349.{{cite news |last=Caña |first=Paul John |date=January 17, 2022 |title=Rage, Riots, and Death: Looking Back at the Pepsi 349 Debacle |url=https://www.esquiremag.ph/long-reads/features/pepsi-349-number-fever-a00289-20220117-lfrm |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221010142040/https://www.esquiremag.ph/long-reads/features/pepsi-349-number-fever-a00289-20220117-lfrm |archive-date=October 10, 2022 |access-date=July 16, 2023 |work=Esquire}} Grand prize-winning bottle caps were tightly controlled by PepsiCo. Two bottles with caps with that day's winning number printed inside them and a security code for confirmation had been produced and distributed. However, before the promotion was extended to add new winning numbers, 800,000 regular bottle caps had already been printed with the number 349 but without the security code. Theoretically, these bottle caps were cumulatively worth US$32 billion.

Thousands of Filipinos rushed to Pepsi bottling plants to claim their prizes.{{cite news |last1=Teves |first1=Oliver |date=July 29, 1993 |title=A PEPSI GIVEAWAY, GONE WRONG |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/business/1993/07/29/a-pepsi-giveaway-gone-wrong/1a6af4b1-2b6f-4e5a-9b1d-5dc6799ac2af/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230529165858/https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/business/1993/07/29/a-pepsi-giveaway-gone-wrong/1a6af4b1-2b6f-4e5a-9b1d-5dc6799ac2af/ |archive-date=May 29, 2023 |access-date=June 13, 2020 |newspaper=The Washington Post}} PCPPI initially responded that the erroneously printed bottle caps had no confirmation security code and could not be redeemed. The following morning, newspapers announced that the winning number was actually 134, adding to the confusion. After an emergency meeting of PCPPI and PepsiCo executives at 3:00{{nbsp}}a.m. on the 27th, the company offered 500 pesos ($18) to holders of mistakenly printed bottle caps as a "gesture of goodwill".{{cite news |date=August 18, 1993 |title=COMPANY NEWS: An Unlucky Number; Pepsi Caps the Damages On a Promotion Gone Flat |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1993/08/18/business/company-news-an-unlucky-number-pepsi-caps-the-damages-on-a-promotion-gone-flat.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230117005854/https://www.nytimes.com/1993/08/18/business/company-news-an-unlucky-number-pepsi-caps-the-damages-on-a-promotion-gone-flat.html |archive-date=January 17, 2023 |access-date=June 13, 2020 |newspaper=The New York Times}}{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dYptAAAAMAAJ |title=Asian Recorder |date=1993 |publisher=K. K. Thomas at Recorder Press |page=23358 |language=en |access-date=June 14, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231014040511/https://books.google.com/books?id=dYptAAAAMAAJ |archive-date=October 14, 2023 |url-status=live}} This offer was accepted by 486,170 people, costing PepsiCo US$8.9 million (240 million pesos).{{cite web |title=G.R. No. 150394 |access-date=June 13, 2020 |url=http://sc.judiciary.gov.ph/jurisprudence/2007/june2007/150394.htm |archive-date=March 7, 2019 |date=June 26, 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190307210556/http://sc.judiciary.gov.ph/jurisprudence/2007/june2007/150394.htm }}

Many irate 349 bottle cap holders refused to accept PCPPI's settlement offer. They formed a consumer group, the 349 Alliance, which organized a boycott of Pepsi products and held rallies outside the offices of PCPPI and the Philippine government. Most protests were peaceful, but on February 13, 1993, a schoolteacher and a 5-year-old child were killed in Manila by a homemade bomb thrown at a Pepsi truck.{{cite news |title=Blunder turns to anti-Pepsi fever as Filipinos demand their contest prizes |url=https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1993-07-27-1993208127-story.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200823033107/https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1993-07-27-1993208127-story.html |archive-date=August 23, 2020 |access-date=June 13, 2020 |work=baltimoresun.com}} In May, three PCPPI employees in Davao were killed by a grenade thrown into a warehouse.{{cite news |title=Botched Cap Promotion Haunts Pepsi |url=https://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/botched-cap-promotion-haunts-pepsi |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130913230638/https://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/botched-cap-promotion-haunts-pepsi |archive-date=September 13, 2013 |access-date=June 13, 2020 |work=The Phnom Penh Post}}

PCPPI executives received death threats, and as many as 37 company trucks were overturned, stoned or burned. One of the three men accused by the NBI of orchestrating the bombings claimed they had been paid by Pepsi to stage the attacks to frame the protesters as terrorists. Then-senator Gloria Macapagal Arroyo suggested that the attacks were being perpetrated by rival bottlers attempting to take advantage of PCPPI's vulnerability. The Committee on Trade and Commerce of the Senate of the Philippines accused Pepsi of "gross negligence", noting that it was involved in a similar fiasco in Chile just a month before the 349 incident.

About 22,000 people took legal action against PepsiCo. At least 689 civil suits and 5,200 criminal complaints for fraud and deception were filed. In January 1993, Pepsi paid the Department of Trade and Industry a fine of 150,000 pesos for violating the promotion's approved conditions. On June 24, 1996, a trial court awarded the plaintiffs in one of the lawsuits 10,000 pesos (about US$380{{cite web |title=XE Currency Table: PHP – Philippine Peso |url=https://www.xe.com/currencytables/?from=PHP&date=1996-06-24 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210414174713/https://www.xe.com/currencytables/?from=PHP&date=1996-06-24 |archive-date=April 14, 2021 |access-date=July 7, 2020 |website=XE.com}}) each in "moral damages".

Three dissatisfied plaintiffs appealed; on July 3, 2001, the appellate court awarded these three plaintiffs 30,000 pesos (about US$570{{cite web |title=XE Currency Table: PHP – Philippine Peso |url=https://www.xe.com/currencytables/?from=PHP&date=2001-07-03 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150906082151/https://www.xe.com/currencytables/?from=PHP&date=2001-07-03 |archive-date=September 6, 2015 |access-date=July 7, 2020 |website=XE.com}}) each, in addition to attorneys' fees. PCPPI appealed against this decision. The suit reached the Supreme Court of the Philippines, which in 2006 ruled that "PCPPI is not liable to pay the amounts printed on the crowns to their holders. Nor is PCPPI liable for damages thereon", and that "the issues surrounding the 349 incident have been laid to rest and must no longer be disturbed in this decision".

To commemorate the promotion, the Ig Nobel Prize, a spoof of the Nobel Prizes organized by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Journal of Irreproducible Results, awarded its 1993 Peace Prize to PCPPI for "bringing many warring factions together for the first time in their nation's history".{{cite web |date=October 8, 1993 |title=Pepsi-Cola gets 'Ig Nobel Peace Prize' |url=https://www.upi.com/Archives/1993/10/08/Pepsi-Cola-gets-Ig-Nobel-Peace-Prize/6600750052800/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211002161154/https://www.upi.com/Archives/1993/10/08/Pepsi-Cola-gets-Ig-Nobel-Peace-Prize/6600750052800/ |archive-date=October 2, 2021 |access-date=July 16, 2023 |work=UPI}}

In the immediate aftermath of the scandal, sales of Pepsi products in the Philippines plunged to 17% of the total market share; however, sales recovered to 21% by 1994.

The incident is discussed in the 2022 Netflix documentary Pepsi, Where's My Jet? as a precedent in the Leonard v. Pepsico, Inc. lawsuit in the United States that also involved purportedly false advertising by Pepsi.{{cite web |last=Keswani |first=Pallavi |date=November 20, 2022 |title='Pepsi, Where's My Jet?' docu-series review: An all-American pop rush that fizzles out in the end |url=https://www.thehindu.com/entertainment/movies/pepsi-wheres-my-jet-docu-series-review-an-all-american-pop-rush-that-fizzles-out-in-the-end/article66160352.ece |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221225085340/https://www.thehindu.com/entertainment/movies/pepsi-wheres-my-jet-docu-series-review-an-all-american-pop-rush-that-fizzles-out-in-the-end/article66160352.ece |archive-date=December 25, 2022 |access-date=July 16, 2023 |work=The Hindu}}

• Leonard v. Pepsico, Inc.
• McDonald's Monopoly
• Hoover free flights promotion
• Advertising and marketing controversies in the Philippines

{{reflist}}

• [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIpS4GuKIYs TV commercials for Pepsi Number Fever]

{{PepsiCo}}

Category:1992 in the Philippines

Category:PepsiCo advertising campaigns

Category:Sales promotion

Category:1992 controversies

Category:Corporate scandals

Category:Controversies in the Philippines

Category:Consumer boycotts