How A Simple Mistake By Pepsi Backfired On The Company Big Time
It was 1992 in the Philippines, and times were tough. The country’s economy wasn’t doing well, and almost half of the residents were living in extreme poverty, surviving on the equivalent of $1.25 a day. Though they were working hard, many families needed a financial miracle. So when Pepsi announced its Number Fever promotion, a lottery game operating solely in the Philippines, the grand prize was the salvation many had hoped for — until everything came crashing down.
The Plan
In February, PepsiCo Philippines announced it would be running a promotion based out of Manila, the capital of the country. Under the promotion's rules, Pepsi would print numbers between 001 and 999 under select sodas' bottle caps.
Nightly Announcements
At the same time, they ran a nightly blurb on Manila's Channel 2 News TV station, declaring the day’s winning number. Anyone who had bought a Pepsi product with a number under the cap could check their number against the winning one, and hopefully get big money.
Golden Opportunity
The standard prize was small, about the equivalent of $5 USD, but that was still more than a day's minimum wage in the country at the time. Even better, the grand prize was one million Philippine pesos — about $40,000 USD. That kind of cash would change a family's life.
Big Promises
Understandably, this glimmer of hope that Pepsi had suddenly provided was a life raft that hundreds of thousands of people latched onto. It was like Willy Wonka's golden tickets: everyone tried to get a Pepsi bottle cap, and the company's market share soared from 4% to 25% in just three months.
