The Deadly Bottle

"The Deadly Bottle – The marketing error that started a revolution" recounts the "Number Fever" disaster of 1992. Pepsi launched a promotion in the Philippines: look under the bottle cap, and if you find the number 349, you win 1 million pesos. A computer glitch printed 800,000 winning caps instead of two. Half the population of the Philippines thought they were millionaires. Journalist Marcus Cap describes the chaos when Pepsi refused to pay. Riots erupted, delivery trucks were burned, and grenades were thrown into Pepsi offices, killing five people. The "349 Alliance" waged a years-long war against the corporation. "The Deadly Bottle" is a cautionary tale about the power of hope in a poor society. It illustrates how a simple printing error can escalate into civil unrest when a corporation breaks a promise to millions of desperate people.