It’s the mid-1990s and the Cola Wars are raging. Pepsi unveils a formidable weapon: a new marketing strategy and slogan ‘Drink Pepsi, Get Stuff’, a promotion whereby customers collect on pack points to claim prizes such as T-shirts or sunglasses. And – as specified in a TV ad for the campaign – even a Harrier jump jet for seven million points.

“It was clearly a joke,” said PepsiCo’s then CPO Brian Swette of the ad in Netflix documentary series Pepsi, Where’s My Jet? (on demand). But not to 20-year-old business student John Leonard, who took the disclaimer-free ad at face value.

So begins the story of how Leonard, with the help of mountain climbing pal and businessman Todd Hoffman, raised the points and claimed what they believed was rightfully theirs. And the corporate response from Pepsi.

“There was no doubt in my mind that this was a money-grab opportunity,” explains Jeff Mordos, account manager for Pepsi’s ad agency BBDO at the time. But, as the documentary makes clear, Leonard was – and is – a genuine and sincere guy. After all, he turned down a million-dollar settlement offer.

Unlike so many Netflix documentary series, the content never feels stretched, and the four episodes are fizzing with 1990s icons, archive footage, fun dramatisations and humorous fourth wall breaking.

Pepsi does not come off well at all. And, as the show recounts, it wasn’t the first time a promotion for the brand had gone badly. You’ll be screaming “just give him his damn jet!”

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