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> The number “349” was the $40,000 winning number. > Pepsi had explicitly told its vendor factories not to print this number at all. Sounds dangerous to decide the winning number in advance. Makes it easier for a vendor or someone else to cheat. But I suppose they wanted short numbers.
Interesting story, but the clickbait headline is not needed here. Story ends with: > At the end of everything, Pepsi’s total combined losses, between physical, legal, and brand equity costs, would top $20M. Their market share would plummet and take years to rebound. The "$32 billion" seems to come from the amount of bottles who would win the prize, but Pepsi didn't actually pay out the promised amount, so it didn't c…
This critique is unnecessarily pedantic. If I issue you a $200 check and (through whatever error) it ends up being written for $200,000,000, we would fairly call it a "$200MM typo" despite the fact that it would bounce. The headline delivered exactly the story it promised. I was surprised I had never heard about it before.
As a writer, creating a headline is always a balancing act. You want to drive interest and create curiosity but you also don't want to mislead readers because that will burn them and they'll never read your stuff again.
I felt I delivered on that curiosity. But the internet is a big place. Someone will always find a bone to pick.
I'm new to this site. My Medium stats said I was getting a sudden avalanche of traffic from here so I created an account just to address the initial comment of this thread.
Anyways, thanks for reading everyone.
Interesting story, but the clickbait headline is not needed here. Story ends with: > At the end of everything, Pepsi’s total combined losses, between physical, legal, and brand equity costs, would top $20M. Their market share would plummet and take years to rebound. The "$32 billion" seems to come from the amount of bottles who would win the prize, but Pepsi didn't actually pay out the promised amount, so it didn't c…
Don't think this is really that clickbaity - the typo amount accounted to 32B, and the outrage caused by that non-existent 32B lead to riots in which people died, in other words, deadly riots. sometimes things are legitimately outrageous and worthy of an emotionally charged headline.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Controversial stuff, even well documented controversial stuff, gets scrubbed from Wikipedia all the time. Check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAND_Corporation You would suppose a think tank directly responsible for such policy gems as : • Mutually assured destruction • The Missile Gap • Planned Shrinkage • tax cuts for the rich and service cuts for the poor • Systematic Torture of enemy soldiers in the Vietnam wa…
You can link to edits. Why don't you show us some of the ones you're talking about?
I gave up then!
> The number “349” was the $40,000 winning number. > Pepsi had explicitly told its vendor factories not to print this number at all. Sounds dangerous to decide the winning number in advance. Makes it easier for a vendor or someone else to cheat. But I suppose they wanted short numbers.
How else would you define there to be only two winning numbers then? If you define the winning number afterwards, there’s no way telling how many numbers of those would’ve been in circulation.
I enjoyed the story and grieve the corporate strong-arming. I would not say that the company is ethically vindicated for the collateral: the addictive sugary drinks and desire to wring dry this already-impoverished market for executives living in the U.S. is an ethically irresponsible and selfish venture covered by the ideology of capitalism.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
People think Wikipedia is complete??? I could add stuff in my field of specialty constantly . I just don't want to jump through all the hoops that come with being a wikipedia contributor, so I keep all my notes on a private wiki.
This selfish
Not to rag on the article because the author talks about other factors at the top, but this is a fascinating story that can't really be summed up by a technical goof-em-up, though that's obviously an important part.
On the one hand, especially from my western perspective, you have the utter frivolousness of soft drinks and the seeming triviality of the technical error. On the other hand, the subsistence wages of the people rioting and the meaning of a $40,000 promise really stabs at the soul. This was a grotesque fuckup. I truly cannot imagine how it would feel to finally face the prospect of escaping the unfair, crushing cycle of poverty and all its attendant ailments, fears, and anxieties only to have some fucking soda company say "whoopsie here's $18". I'd have burned a truck, too. Or worse, frankly, who knows! I've never lived their life. But it's more than just a goof-up, the offer itself seems depraved to me. Pepsi appeared to have leveraged their own poverty to get them to spend money. Yes, yes, I know, many companies do giveaways here in the states, it's a difference of degree and context. Pepsi's opening move was to exploit a profound and powerful human desire to care for your family in the midst of uncertainty. That in the end it went wrong, due to a technical error or a communication error, seems like a natural consequence, like blowing your hand off while playing with fireworks. You shouldn't have played with them to begin with.
Re the riots themselves, I think we in the states have lost a concept of collective human behavior unless it's wrapped in technocratic psychobabble. An organization made a promise that could have changed people's lives, they fucked it up, tried to hide behind a technical error, people were justifiably angry, and people do all kinds of things with justifiable anger.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This critique is unnecessarily pedantic. If I issue you a $200 check and (through whatever error) it ends up being written for $200,000,000, we would fairly call it a "$200MM typo" despite the fact that it would bounce. The headline delivered exactly the story it promised. I was surprised I had never heard about it before.
Eh, I think it's debatable and not pedantic. I literally clicked on the link because I inferred the headline to mean that Pepsi made a typo that somehow cost them $32B. And re: your example, I would not call that a "$200MM typo", I would call it a typo. If I intended to write a check for $200 and later when it was cashed found I had accidentally wrote it for $220, I would call that a $20 typo.
The fact that it caused riots was especially a giveaway. If Pepsi had actually paid out after making their mistake, why would there be riots? Yes I can imagine situations (e.g. they only paid out after there were deadly riots) but it still leads you to the right interpretation.
BTW I agree that your example is a $20 typo, but that seems unrelated. I would still call it a $20 typo if you then didn't cash in that cheque.
> The number “349” was the $40,000 winning number. > Pepsi had explicitly told its vendor factories not to print this number at all. Sounds dangerous to decide the winning number in advance. Makes it easier for a vendor or someone else to cheat. But I suppose they wanted short numbers.
How else would you define there to be only two winning numbers then? If you define the winning number afterwards, there’s no way telling how many numbers of those would’ve been in circulation.