MagiCans - Coca Cola with a (bad) surprise

In this campaign, Coca Cola wanted to give away more than $4 million to customers by filling select beverage cans with cash or prizes. So these winning cans were the MagiCans - a can designed specifically for this campaign.

Although it looked like a regular Coke can from the outside, it actually featured a spring-loaded mechanism that ejected the prize inside when the can was opened.

In order not to differ from other cans in weight and to prevent the prize from becoming waterlogged, the part of the can that contained said mechanism was sealed and the remaining reservoir was filled with chlorinated water so that the weight of the can was approximately that of a normal full can of Coca-Cola.

As a final precaution in case of a leak, Coke added ammonium sulfate (smell à la stink bomb) to the water in the reservoir so that customers would recognize the foul odor and not drink the water if it leaked.

But Coca Cola soon began receiving complaints from customers about defective MagiCans, resulting in stinky, soggy pop-up prices. Other MagiCans leaked and had a faulty pop-up mechanism, leading to complaints from customers who didn't know about the campaign and had actually tried to drink the foul liquid. One little boy was even hospitalized afterwards.

The MagiCan campaign earned Coca Cola a lot of bad press and had to be stopped long before it was supposed to run - and before all the MagiCans were discovered. Perhaps there are even unopened MagiCans today that have been forgotten somewhere....