When cola brand Pepsi announced its latest advertisement, it thought it had struck gold in terms of marketing technique.
In 1996, the fizzy drink company launched its Pepsi Points scheme, where customers could save drinks labels containing points and redeem them in order to win branded merchandise.
According to Metro, Pepsi fans needed to save up 125 points in order to receive a pair of sunglasses, or a cool seven million in order to win a harrier fighter jet worth $32 million (£26.3m).
Despite the large amount of points needed to win the jet, plucky student John Leonard decided to take on the challenge to claim the costly prize.
Once the student worked out the cost of the cans in order to win the prize, he got to work believing he'd drawn a blank.
However, Netflix documentary Pepsi, Where's My Jet? revealed that John managed to find a loophole in the scheme where he could purchase the points for $700,000 (£575,242) as they were 10 cents each.
The then-20-year-old took the cheque to Pepsi HQ alongside his friend and business owner, Todd Hoffman.
The brand was stumped by John's proposal, refusing to believe that someone had taken it up on the offer.
Todd told the Netflix documentary: "I thought to hell with them, man. I'm writing the cheque and I'm sending it in. Here we go! We're on our adventure."
Despite John and Todd's best efforts to persuade Pepsi, the brand quickly shut down its offer.
Former chief marketing officer Brian Swette said: "It was clearly a joke, you don't offer up military jets."
The former COO of Pepsi's Ad Agency Jeff Mordos added: "There wasn't a person who didn't think this wasn't pure insanity."
John then read a letter from Pepsi to the camera that he received after he tried to cash in the points.
The letter said: "Thanks for the effort. Hahaha. It was meant to be a joke. For your troubles here's coupons for two cases of Pepsi."
This led John to tell the documentary: "It was kind of a jack*** move blow-off."
After his proposal was turned down, John and Todd attempted to sue Pepsi in the state of New York, which then sued them back.
John and Todd hired lawyer Larry Schantz to hash out a deal with Pepsi, which then counteroffered with $750,000 (£616,263) instead of the fighter jet.
John nearly took Pepsi up on the offer, before he decided to stick to his guns.
He explained: "I was putting together the math on this: the jet is worth $32m and they're offering essentially a 30th.
"Frankly to me, that number was low-balling. I want the jet."
The student then looked at different avenues to help him fight the case against Pepsi and at one point, he even hired spin doctor Michael Avenatti before promptly disagreeing with his method.
The case was then heard in a New York court, with Judge Kimba Wood at the helm of the proceedings.
This worried John, who told the Netflix documentary: "She was represented to me as being a corporate judge. She favoured corporations."
Larry added: "She definitely came out, I would say, on big business' side."
Much to Todd and John's disappointment, Judge Wood ultimately ruled in the corporation's favour, explaining their case "didn't have merit" because "no reasonable person could find [the offer] credible", according to the doc.
This meant that despite their best efforts, John and Todd walked away with nothing.
Reflecting on the initial offer he turned down, John told the documentary producers: "By this time I was feeling like God damn like maybe I should've taken that early settlement, right? I was tired. It was time to turn the page."
After the court decision was made, PepsiCo re-released the advertisement, valuing the jet at 700,000,000 Pepsi Points.
