> An advertisement doesn’t oblige the advertise to engage in a specific transaction with a customer.
While that's probably true, an advertisement does oblige the advertiser to actually be offering those things at the terms advertised to some non-misleading degree. Like, if an advertiser said "selling cars for $500" and they didn't actually have any $500 cars for sale, that's false advertising. If they had cars that were listed at $500, but they refused to sell them to anybody, that would also be false advertising.
> they wouldn’t be able to find anyone to testify that that PepsiCo actually thought they would be selling a Harrier jet
That's irrelevent. What is relevent is whether reasonble viewers outside the company might actually believe that. I think it would be perfectly reasonable for someone who didn't know much about harrier jets to think it might be a plane they could obtain and fly. It doesn't really seem like an "obvious" joke unless you know a lot about harrier jets - which most people don't.
While that's probably true, an advertisement does oblige the advertiser to actually be offering those things at the terms advertised to some non-misleading degree. Like, if an advertiser said "selling cars for $500" and they didn't actually have any $500 cars for sale, that's false advertising. If they had cars that were listed at $500, but they refused to sell them to anybody, that would also be false advertising.
> they wouldn’t be able to find anyone to testify that that PepsiCo actually thought they would be selling a Harrier jet
That's irrelevent. What is relevent is whether reasonble viewers outside the company might actually believe that. I think it would be perfectly reasonable for someone who didn't know much about harrier jets to think it might be a plane they could obtain and fly. It doesn't really seem like an "obvious" joke unless you know a lot about harrier jets - which most people don't.