Pepsi
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50 free Pepsi trivia questions with answers — trivia quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Pepsi has spent more than a century as the challenger brand. It began at a small-town soda fountain, went bankrupt, was rescued during the Depression and then fought its bigger rival with taste tests, pop stars and some of the most talked-about adverts ever made. This quiz covers the whole story: the inventor and the early years, the cola wars, celebrity commercials that went right and badly wrong, promotions that ended in court, Diet Pepsi and the many spin-off flavours, and the snack, drink and restaurant brands gathered under PepsiCo. It suits soda fans, advertising buffs and anyone setting a quiz round on famous brands. Every question comes with a short explanation, so you pick up the story behind each answer as you play.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Which pop star's hair was set alight by pyrotechnics while filming a Pepsi commercial in 1984?
Michael Jackson
Michael Jackson suffered second-degree burns to his scalp and gave his $1.5 million settlement to a California hospital, whose burn unit was then named after him.
Q 02What did student John Leonard try to claim for 7,000,000 Pepsi Points, leading to a famous lawsuit?
A Harrier jet
A Harrier jet landed at a school in the advert, so Leonard sent a cheque for roughly $700,000 to buy the points. A court ruled that no reasonable person could have taken the offer seriously.
Q 03Which spirit did PepsiCo sell in the West from 1972 in exchange for putting Pepsi on Soviet shelves?
Vodka
Vodka was the currency of the deal because roubles could not be taken abroad, so Stolichnaya flowed out and cola syrup flowed in. Pepsi became the first American consumer product made and sold in the USSR.
Q 04Which film star joined Pepsi-Cola's board in 1959 after her husband, the company's chairman, died?
Joan Crawford
Joan Crawford travelled widely to promote Pepsi and had the drink placed prominently in several of her later films. She kept her seat on the board until 1973.
Q 05Which computer firm hired Pepsi-Cola president John Sculley in 1983 after a pitch from its co-founder?
Apple
Apple co-founder Steve Jobs won him over by asking whether he wanted to sell sweetened water for the rest of his life. Sculley ran the company until 1993.
Q 06Which coin bought a 12-ounce Pepsi in the 1930s, twice what rival colas poured for the same price?
A nickel
A nickel had bought only about six ounces of cola before Pepsi's larger bottle arrived in 1934. The bargain, pushed in a catchy radio jingle, helped the company's profits double between 1936 and 1938.
Q 07Which cola, advertised with a Van Halen song, did PepsiCo launch in 1992 and scrap by 1994?
Crystal Pepsi
Crystal Pepsi provoked Coca-Cola into launching Tab Clear, which its marketing chief later called a deliberate kamikaze effort to kill both drinks. Limited-time revivals began in 2016.
Q 08In which country did a 1992 Pepsi contest wrongly print 800,000 winning bottle caps, sparking riots?
Philippines
The Philippines erupted after number 349 was announced as the winner of a million-peso prize. PepsiCo offered each holder 500 pesos as a goodwill gesture, and the country's top court cleared the bottler in 2006.
Q 09Which 1989 film sequel featured a fictional Pepsi Perfect, a drink PepsiCo sold for real in 2015?
Back to the Future Part II
Back to the Future Part II set the drink in its imagined year 2015, so the real release came in that year: 6,500 collector bottles priced at $20.15 each.
Q 10What did the Soviet Union trade to PepsiCo in 1989 when the cola giant wanted goods it could resell?
Old warships
Old warships made up most of the haul: 17 retired submarines, a cruiser, a frigate and a destroyer. PepsiCo sold them straight on for scrap.
Q 11Pepsi was first served in 1893 at a soda fountain in the town of New Bern, in which US state?
North Carolina
North Carolina was home turf for the drink's inventor, who studied at the state university in Chapel Hill. He had licensed bottlers in more than 24 states before his firm went bankrupt in 1923.
Q 12What was Pepsi called for its first five years, from its 1893 debut at a New Bern soda fountain?
Brad's Drink
Brad's Drink took its name from inventor Caleb Bradham, who blended kola nut extract, vanilla and what he called rare oils. The new name arrived in August 1898.
Q 13Pepsi-Cola was named in 1898 for its supposed power to ease which complaint?
Indigestion
Q 21Which Dallas-based snack company merged with the Pepsi-Cola Company in 1965 to form PepsiCo?
Frito-Lay
Frito-Lay was itself only four years old, formed when the Frito Company joined H.W. Lay & Company in 1961. Pepsi's chief summed up the logic of the deal: potato chips make people thirsty, and cola fixes that.
Q 22Which sports drink was the real prize when PepsiCo bought Quaker Oats for $14 billion in 2001?
Gatorade
Gatorade was developed in 1965 at the University of Florida, at the request of the Gators' football coach, to replace fluids his players lost. Quaker had owned it since 1983.
Q 23Which chain, founded by two Wichita brothers in 1958, did PepsiCo buy in 1977 and spin off in 1997?
Pizza Hut
Indigestion is dyspepsia in medical language, the usual account of the name's root. Another credits pepsin, an enzyme that helps the stomach break down food.
Q 14What was the profession of Pepsi's inventor, who had dropped out of medical school around 1890?
Pharmacist
A pharmacist by trade, he left medical school when his father's business went bankrupt. He then opened a drugstore that, like many of the day, housed a soda fountain.
Q 15Which reformulated cola did Coca-Cola launch in 1985, prompting Pepsi to declare victory in the cola wars?
New Coke
New Coke drew such a backlash that the original formula returned within three months as Coca-Cola Classic. Pepsi had marked the launch with a newspaper advert claiming victory and a day off for its staff.
Q 16What did PepsiCo call its 1975 campaign in which shoppers tasted two unmarked colas and chose one?
The Pepsi Challenge
The Pepsi Challenge began as a single blind sip test. Author Malcolm Gladwell later argued that a sip flatters the sweeter of two drinks, even for people who would prefer the other over a whole can.
Q 17Which singer kept a $5 million fee in 1989 when Pepsi dropped her commercial over a music video?
Madonna
Madonna's advert showed her revisiting her childhood, but the video for Like a Prayer, released a day later, brought a boycott from Christian groups. Pepsi gave in and cancelled the campaign.
Q 18Which annual American television spectacle carried Pepsi's name as title sponsor from 2013 to 2022?
Super Bowl halftime show
The Super Bowl halftime show wore Pepsi branding for ten straight years, starting with Beyoncé's set in New Orleans in 2013. Pepsi had also sponsored the 2007 edition.
Q 19Which model handed a police officer a Pepsi in a 2017 protest-themed advert pulled after one day?
Kendall Jenner
Kendall Jenner's advert was accused of trivialising Black Lives Matter and police brutality. Bernice King, daughter of Martin Luther King Jr., was among those who mocked it online.
Q 20Which stadium anthem did Britney Spears, Beyoncé and Pink cover for a 2004 Pepsi campaign?
We Will Rock You
We Will Rock You also featured Enrique Iglesias in the 2004 campaign. Megan Thee Stallion covered the same song for another Pepsi advert twenty years later.
Pizza Hut left PepsiCo along with two other fast-food chains in a spin-off later renamed Yum! Brands. A lifetime contract kept Pepsi flowing in the restaurants.
Q 24Which soda, named after old slang for moonshine, did the Pepsi-Cola Company buy in 1964?
Mountain Dew
Mountain Dew was created in Knoxville, Tennessee, by two bottler brothers who wanted a mixer for their bourbon. Early labels showed a barefoot hillbilly with a rifle and a jug.
Q 25Which orange juice brand did PepsiCo buy from the Seagram drinks group for $3.3 billion in 1998?
Tropicana
Tropicana had cost the Canadian group only $1.2 billion ten years earlier. It stayed a PepsiCo subsidiary until 2021, when a majority stake was sold.
Q 26Which bottled water brand did PepsiCo first put on sale in Wichita, Kansas, in July 1994?
Aquafina
Aquafina is purified municipal water, not spring water. Since 2007 every bottle has stated that it comes from public supplies, a line added after campaigners asked where the water came from.
Q 27Which coffee chain formed a 1994 joint venture with PepsiCo to sell bottled drinks in shops?
Starbucks
Starbucks supplied the name and PepsiCo the delivery network: their North American Coffee Partnership put bottled Frappuccino into grocery stores and vending machines from 1996.
Q 28Which tea brand has PepsiCo sold as bottled iced tea since a 1991 partnership with Unilever?
Lipton
Lipton iced tea comes from the same joint venture as Brisk and Pure Leaf. Unlike the other two, Pure Leaf is brewed as a liquid instead of being mixed from instant tea powder.
Q 29Which executive, born in Madras, led PepsiCo as chief executive from 2006 to 2018?
Indra Nooyi
Indra Nooyi joined PepsiCo in 1994 and became only its fifth chief executive. Fortune named her the most powerful woman in business five years in a row, from 2006 to 2010.
Q 30PepsiCo's headquarters, ringed by sculpture gardens, has stood since 1970 in which New York hamlet?
Purchase
Purchase lies within the town of Harrison, and the grounds hold 45 contemporary sculptures that are open to the public. PepsiCo moved there from 500 Park Avenue in Midtown Manhattan.