Number fever

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Number Fever was an advertising campaign by the US company PepsiCo in 1992 that resulted in riots and the deaths of at least five people due to a production error in the Philippines .

background

By late 1991, The Coca-Cola Company , PepsiCo's main competitor , had a market share of around 75% in the Philippines , while PepsiCo only had 17%. At that time, the Philippines was the twelfth largest market for soft drinks . The Chilean marketing expert Pedro Vergara developed the idea for the “Number Fever”. From February 17, 1992, Pepsi sold bottles in the Philippines with a three-digit number between 001 and 999 in the lidhad been imprinted, including a prize money, and a seven-digit alphanumeric code to prove the authenticity of the lid. Certain numbers won prizes between a hundred and a million Filipino pesos (approximately $ 40,000). Pepsi announced a winning number Monday through Friday on Channel 2 television and over 29 radio stations daily. The promotion was originally scheduled to run until May 8th. The campaign got off to a successful start, and by the end of March 1992 PepsiCo's market share in the Philippines had risen to 24.9%. More than 51,000 people won prizes, with the top prize of one million pesos being awarded 17 times. Because of the great success of the promotion, it was extended by five weeks. In addition to the Philippines, the "Number Fever" took place in 1992 in Argentina , Chile , Guatemala and Mexico . A faulty fax in Chile resulted in the wrong winning number being announced, which led to protests and a lawsuit there. Unlike in the Philippines, however, the complaints remained peaceful.

Riots after May 25, 1992

At 6 p.m. on May 25, 1992, PepsiCo announced that 349 would be the winning number that day. Due to an error in production, however, instead of two bottles with the 349, around 800,000 bottles with this number were produced. First, the next morning newspapers spread that the 134 had won instead of the 349 , but this was unsuccessful. Instead, protests broke out. The corporation finally announced at 3 a.m. on May 27 that a mistake had been made and offered owners of lids with the 349 over the next few weeks 500 pesos (around $ 20) as compensation for those on the bottle tops stated winnings would have cost PepsiCo billions of dollars in total. The compensation offer increased the cost of the campaign from $ 2 million to $ 10 million. 486,170 people accepted the offer, but the protests against PepsiCo lasted for over a year. Between 32 and 37 group trucks were stolen, damaged or destroyed in the course of the riots. A fragmentation grenade thrown at a Pepsi truck killed a teacher and a five-year-old girl in Manila in February 1993 and injured five other people. In May 1993, three PepsiCo employees were killed in Davao City after a grenade was thrown. During a state visit by US President Bill Clinton in November 1993, hundreds demonstrated near the Malacañan Palace .

Numerous lawsuits were filed against the company, but most of them were unsuccessful. In 2006, a Philippine court finally ruled that PepsiCo had not acted negligently and therefore could not be held responsible for the consequences.

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