Street Cents

Pepsi Stuff

The Pepsi Stuff promotion advertises you can drink Pepsi products and get great Stuff. Street Cents shows, with a little help from a viewer, that to get the top prizes, you can drink and drink and drink… and drink and not get anywhere near the top-rated stuff within the allotted time.

What are Pepsi Points?

From May 18 to September 8, 2003, Pepsi is running a promotion called "Pepsi Stuff." The tag-line for the campaign is “Drink it. Get it.”

During the 114 days of the promotion, consumers are supposed to drink Pepsi (and Pepsi products like 7-UP and Mountain Dew) and collect points from cap liners and packaging. Then they send the points to Pepsi to get the prizes.

Prizes range from Pepsi wristbands and t-shirts to Sony electronics. Reebok is also in on the promotion, offering things like backpacks, pants and pullovers.

The problem

In her letter to Street Cents, Jennifer makes the point that you’d have to drink a ridiculous amount of Pepsi to earn the 2,000 points you need to get one of the top prizes – the digital camera (Sony’s Cyber-shot U Digital Still Camera DSCU20.)

And she's right, let's do some math, shall we?

The math

First we'll figure out the cheapest way to get a Pepsi Point. (Note: these are based on grocery store and theatre prices for pop in Nova Scotia - before taxes and bottle deposits.)

When you buy...	It costs you...	You earn...	Each point costs you...
32/44 oz Fountain Cups	$3.48/$3.70	2 points	$1.74/$1.85 per point
600mL Bottles	$1.19	1 Point	$1.19 per point
1 litre Bottles	$1.49	1 Point	$1.49 per point
2 litre Bottles	$1.69	2 Points	$0.85 per point
6 x 710 mL Multipack Bottles	$4.09	6 Points	$0.68 per point
12 Pack (12 x 355 mL cans)	$4.29	5 Points	$0.86 per point
355 mL can	$0.69	1 Point	$0.69 per point

So, the cheapest way to earn points – at 68 cents each – is to buy the 6 packs of 710 mL bottles.

Earning enough Pepsi points for the camera

Jennifer's math in her letter is bang-on for the cans of Pepsi she buys, but here’s the Street Cents calculation showing that even when you earn points the most economical way (a 6-pack of 710mL plastic bottles) you still can’t realistically drink enough pop within the allotted timeframe (114 days) to get the camera.

You need 2,000 Pepsi points to get the digital camera.

The cheapest way to get points is to buy the 6 x 710 mL Multipack Bottles (6 Points at $0.68 per point) so we’ll use this for our calculation.

To earn 2,000 points at 6 points a package, you’d need to buy 334 “6-packs” of Pepsi product. At the grocery store in Nova Scotia, this will cost you $4.09 X 334 = $1,366.06 + tax + bottle deposit.

Pepsi charges $12.25 shipping and handling (for an item worth 751 or more points.)

Grand total: $1,378.31

This is about $220 cheaper than Jennifer's estimation because she usually buys cans of pop, but it's still substantially more than a good digital camera will cost you in a store.

And you would also be the proud owner of 2004 bottles of pop. To drink them during the promotion (114 days) you’d have to drink roughly 18 bottles of Pepsi product a day!

Stockpiling pop isn’t much of an option either because it expires. Bottles Street Cents checked out in June were marked with August expiry dates.

next >>

Page 1: What are Pepsi Points?

Page 2: Pepsi's Solution

Page 3: But what about the slogan: Drink it. Get it?