Stick with Coke Rewards

What if I told you that I'd give you 10 bucks for every fool you successfully recruit to read this boring blog? Would you expect me to pay out upon your successful performance? Of course not, I'm a poor law student with no disposable income. All of my dough goes directly to books, paper, pens, etc. The rest of my pocket change goes directly to tuition and beer. Hence, you'd assume that my advertisement is merely jest, not a valid offer binding me to contract. That's not what Leonard assumed when he viewed the Pepsi commercial advertising the possibility of winning a 23 million dollar Harrier Jet for a sum of 7 million Pepsi points. The commercial, as you may have seen, encouraged consumers to drink more Pepsi and earn points that can be redeemed for stuff. At the end of the commercial a kid was shown exiting the cockpit with a Pepsi and in the background, text was shown displaying that 7 million points was needed to acquire the jet. Of course everything comes with a disclaimer these days. Pepsi covered their tail by stating that consumers must refer to the catalog order form to obtain rewards. There was no mention of the jet in the Pepsi catalog, however it was noted that points could be purchased for 10 cents a point. Leonard realized that he would need to drink thousands of Pepsi drinks a day in order to accumulate enough points to earn the jet. Noting that this was impossible, he decided instead to come up with $700k through investors. Once the money was obtained he sent the order form to Pepsi along with a check claiming that he fulfilled his end of the bargain and demanded the jet in return. Pepsi's attorneys returned the check stating that the commercial was meant to be a joke and apologized for any misinterpretation of the commercial. Leonard brought suit for breach of contract and prayed for specific performance of the contract. To make a long story short, he lost. The court held that the advertisement was in jest and that no reasonable person would have concluded that it was a binding promise in exchange for performance. This is the kind of cool crap that we get to analyze in law school.