The Jump-start

In December 1991, a Latin American marketing expert, Pedro Vergara, was dispatched to Pepsi-Cola
headquarters in the Philippines. Vergara’s mission is to create an effective advertising and promotion
program to jump-start operations in the country. On January 15, 1992, Pepsi Cola Products (Philippines),
Inc., or PCPPI, formally applied for a permit with the Department of Trade and Industry to conduct the
nationwide campaign.

The promotion process

The campaign is called “Pepsi Number Fever." The process was simple: the underside of the bottle caps
of Pepsi-Cola’s best-selling drinks—Pepsi, 7-Up, Mountain Dew, and Mirinda Orange—would contain
three imprinted markings: a three-digit number from 001 to 999; a cash prize amount ranging from 100
pesos (about $4) to 1 million pesos (about $40,000); and a seven-digit alphanumeric code was added to
ensure security, prevent tampering, and authenticate the numbers imprinted on the caps. The winner
could take home the amount printed underneath the bottle caps or crowns if the corresponding three-
digit number matches the one Pepsi announces as the winner for that day.

The DTI approved PCPPI’s application on January 23, and "Number Fever" commenced soon after. A
Mexican consulting firm called DG Consultores randomly preselected the winning numbers along with
their corresponding security codes, which were then sent to PCPPI.

The biggest hit

Almost immediately after the campaign started in February 1992, it proved to be an instant hit. People
began buying Pepsi products, keeping the caps and crowns, and then waiting for the nightly
announcement of winners on ABS-CBN’s TV Patrol newscast. By the time the regular run of the promo
ended on May 8, some 51,000 people had won the minimum prize of P100, while 17 lucky buyers each
took home the big prize of P1 million. Various news reports said Pepsi’s monthly sales increased from
$10 million to $14 million, and its market share rose from 19.4 percent to 24.9 percent for the duration
of the promotion. The company even claimed that nearly half of the country’s 65 million population at
the time was aware of and had participated in the campaign.

Winners were able to claim their cash prizes at designated Pepsi redeeming stations after the company
verified that the caps or crowns were legitimate and had not been tampered with.

Because of the success of Number Fever, PCPPI applied for an extension of the promo for five more
weeks. A second list of randomly preselected winning numbers was kept in a safety deposit box at the
UCPB Aguirre branch, and just like before, two keys held by different people from PCPPI and DTI were
needed to open it.
The nightmare begins

On the evening of May 25, this promotion went on as it had for the past 3 months. Channel 2 (ABS-CBN)
displayed the winning number for the day (349), and the supposedly two winners will get the chance to
be millionaires in an instant. Ordinarily, only a few buyers would turn up to collect their prizes. But this
time, tens of thousands of people came forward holding in their hands a cap or crown with the number
349. This is where the nightmare begins. Pepsi had reportedly manufactured a total of 800,000 bottles
that carry the winning number 349.

By the next morning, the problem was clear. Far too many people held the winning number. Thousands
of Filpinos rushed to Pepsi plants to claim their prizes. For the company, clearly there had been a
mistake. And so, after an emergency meeting at 3 a.m., the next day, newspapers around the country
announced that the winning number had changed from 349 to 134. This announcement has caused
great confusion and annoyance to the winners.

The gesture of good will

Nonetheless, on May 28, PCPPI announced that 349 was the winning number after carefully examining
the procedure; however, only those crowns with the matching security codes would be accepted. The
corporation announced that it will not be paying out the cash prizes to the 349 claimants whose security
codes did not match those in the official list after publishing a list of the cash prizes ranging from P100 to
P50,000 along with the exact security codes. As an act of goodwill, Pepsi stated it would instead give
them P500.

A total of 486,170 claimants have accepted the company’s offer of goodwill. Pepsi agreed to give them
all over P240 million as a result of this offer.

The conflicts

However, a sizable number of people persisted in asking for the full sum in crowns. Riots broke out in
front of the Pepsi factory gates in Quezon City; irate protestors hurled rocks and homemade bombs at
the corporate office; and delivery vehicles were broken into, turned over, and even set ablaze. In a
terrible occurrence, a homemade grenade exploded close to a schoolteacher called Aniceta Rosario and
a five-year-old girl after bouncing off a truck. Both of them were killed, and several others were hurt in
the explosion. Months passed throughout the conflict.

The Pepsi 349 claimants quickly began to combine themselves into organizations with names like United
349 and Solid 349. However, the most well-known of these was Coalition 349, which was headed by
Vicente Del Fierro Jr.

Taking it to the court

As many as 22,000 people filed around 687 civil suits and over 5,200 criminal complaints against Pepsi to
do just that.
In one of the cases, in November 1992, a group by the name of Ugnayan 349 submitted a demand letter
to Pepsi with the Quezon City RTC. The plaintiffs "were not entitled to their crowns," the RTC said in a
judgment four years later, in 1996, but PCPPI was compelled to pay each of them P10,000 as moral
damages. Pepsi and the plaintiffs both filed appeals and pursued the matter all the way to the Supreme
Court, which, in 2007, issued a decision that made reference to other lawsuits that had been filed across
the nation and were all settled at that time.

"It has been determined through final and executory judgments that 349 crowns with the incorrect
security code are not winners of crowns. As a result, the petitioner PCPPI is not responsible for paying
the holders of the crowns the sums indicated on them. Nor is PCPPI responsible for any resulting
damages." The Jump-start.