Business Notes PACKAGING

! Have you felt a powerful, primal urge to reach for a six-pack of Pepsi this summer? If so, blame the packaging. Sharp-eyed Pepsi drinkers have noticed that the company's summertime series of decorative Cool Cans bear a hot message: SEX, in capital letters. When two Cool Cans of a particular design are stacked just so, the letters can be clearly discerned, running top to bottom.

Pepsi insists that the word is an accident, the result of a random, computer-generated design based on the letters in Pepsi's name. The company concluded the promotion last month, but some cans remain on store shelves. The fluky labeling "has become an in thing with young people," claims TV consumer reporter David Horowitz. "My own 12-year-old is running around with the cans, showing everyone."