Thread by @finshots

How Pepsi's marketing campaign turned into a deadly catastrophe.

A thread. 👇 (1/n)

In the Philippines, to be “349ed” means to be duped— all thanks to Pepsi.

Why?

Back in 1992, in a bid to beat Coca-Cola, Pepsi rolled out the Number Fever campaign in the Philippines.

It was a simple lottery play—buy Pepsi, collect bottle caps carrying 3-digit numbers, watch the daily announcement of winning numbers, and collect your prizes.

These prices ranged from 100 pesos(around $4) to a grand prize of one mn pesos (roughly $36000). With the Philippines having an average monthly income of $100, Number Fever was an instant hit.

Soon it turned into mania—rampant hoarding and theft of Pepsi bottles became common. Pepsi’s monthly sales bolted by almost $4 mn on a monthly basis & its market share rose from 19.4% to 24.9%. But this is where stuff goes wrong.

One fine day, when the nation sat in anticipation, Pepsi announced the winning number for the jackpot—349. The problem? 349 had already been designated as a ‘non-winning’ number in earlier campaigns.

So, Pepsi had printed over 6,00,000 of these 349 bottle caps.

Which meant that over 6,00,000 Filipinos were now millionaire winners— a mistake worth over $21 billion!
When realization struck, Pepsi replaced the number with 134. But it was too late.

Thousands flocked to Pepsi’s bottling plants demanding their prize. To pacify the mob, Pepsi decided to pay 500 pesos ($18) to all winning cap holders as a “goodwill gesture”.

Public anger exploded and massive riots broke out. This disaster cost Pepsi up to $10 mn in payouts along with thousands of lawsuits, further cementing Coca-Cola’s stronghold in the Philippines.

How do you think this crisis could have been handled?

Let us know in the comments.
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