Pepsi Challenge
If a complete stranger came up to you on the street and offered you a can of soda, would you accept it? Would you take a can from an open soda case sitting out in public with a sign asking you to take one?
I attempted to give away, can by can, a 12-pack of Mountain Dew to anyone that would accept one. I gave some to friends, some to classmates, and some anonymously while observing from a distance. I received a range of reactions, mostly skeptical.
I began by offering people I passed on campus a can each. Some gave me a response of confusion but accepted the drink anyway. I gave away 7 of the cans this way, all to people I knew, but not good friends. This made it much more likely to receive different reactions. The most common reaction I received was a skeptical, “why are you just giving this to me” kind of look. This came from almost everyone I personally gave a soda to.
To give away the remaining cans, I placed the case of Mountain Dew on the front steps of the Olsen student center with a sign reading, “PLEASE TAKE 1.” I observed from a bench about 20 feet away pretending to be minding my own business absorbed in my computer.
This was the fun part of the exercise, because it’s interesting to watch people’s reaction to something like a free case of soda sitting, unattended, in the middle of foot-traffic. I witnessed a range of reactions this way.
The first person to take a Dew walked up the steps, read the sign to himself out loud, then said, “One!” as he took a can and put it in his bag as he walked inside. He seemed pretty comfortable with the idea of drinking the abandoned beverage later on.
Next came a guy and girl together, and I can only assume that they were a couple. The boy read the sign aloud and excitedly took 2 cans. When his girlfriend saw this, she exclaimed, “The sign says to just take one!” Her male friend gave her a look and said, “I grabbed one for you, too.” Then they both went on their way. What a gentlemen.
The remaining two cans remained untouched for quite some time, even during a period between classes where students were flooding in and out of the building. They were eventually scooped up by two loner students who silently walked up, took a can, and walked away without a single look back or uncertainty.
The most interesting part of this exercise was definitely the reactions of the people that did NOT take a Dew. This includes anything from someone reading the sign and otherwise completely ignoring the free soda, to a couple of students who actually approached the box, bent over to take a can but stopped mid-stretch, then turned and walked away empty-handed.
There were also a number of students who I overheard talking to their classmates. I heard questions like, “Please take one, what they just don’t want that dew anymore?” and, “Why do they have pop everywhere?” This last questions makes me wonder if my fellow classmates had attempted the same anonymous giveaway that I did.
I personally enjoyed your recollection of the couple, and the male grabbing two (one for him and supposedly one for the female). The spacing of your paragraphs seem to be fairly organized as well. Also, in the second to last paragraph I noticed you started it with “The most interesting part…” This I did not like so much. Try not to use words like interesting, instead look for a better descriptive word to get your point across; I already found it to be an interesting story. 🙂 Not a bad close either, I too was asked a few times if I was still setting out pop randomly because I had already handed some out at the game last Thursday.
Jazmine Dirks said this on September 5, 2012 at 9:33 AM