Pepsi’s Harrier Jet Commercial: A Class Activity Covering Contract Formation and More

Abstract

This teaching note describes an entertaining, engaging, and informative class activity that illustrates numerous aspects of contract formation, including advertisements as offers, the objective theory of contract formation, the reasonable person standard, mutuality of obligation, legality, statute of frauds, and even potential tort liability. Furthermore, this activity provides an excellent opportunity to illustrate a legal principle that is often overlooked, and that is the distinction between “winning” a lawsuit and the far more advantageous outcome of avoiding the lawsuit in the first place. This teaching note is intentionally not a step-by-step guide for performing the class exercise. Instead, all the necessary information is provided with some suggestions. This way the reader is better equipped to customize the activity to best suit their teaching style, class format, semester timing, and student makeup.

Keywords: pedagogy, case study, legal environment, tort liability, advertisements