Dr Pepper crashes Guns N' Roses' album party

A Dr Pepper promotion revolving around Guns N' Roses' new album has gone flat--and the band is getting the misdirected static.

The soda pop maker launched a marketing campaign in March that promised a free soda to "everyone in America" if the rock band released its long-awaited Chinese Democracy album this year. After a 17-year wait, the band finally released the album--and Dr Pepper gave fans 24 hours to go to its Web site to print a coupon for their free soda.

But apparently fans' thirst was greater than Dr Pepper predicted--or prepared for. The crush of visitors to the site crashed the site's servers, leading to a lot of angry fans, some of whom mistakenly blamed the band for their lack of liquid refreshment. Now frontman Axl Rose and his bandmates are ready to pop.

"When you go on the blogs and you read the responses from the fans, they associated Axl with this promotion...and blame him for the fact that they didn't get their free soda," Laurie Soriano, the band's lawyer, told CNN. "We've gone public with the fact that we are not involved but are trying to clean up the mess."

Dr Pepper told CNN that it had "taken great steps" to keep its part of the deal and that it had extended the window for the giveaway from 24 to 42 hours. The drink maker also set up a toll-free line to handle consumer requests for the coupons. All of those measures have since expired.

Despite those measures, the band is still waiting for its apology.

"The door to a lawsuit being filed is always open until the fans are taken care of and Dr Pepper has done the right thing," Soriano told CNN.

[bbabadu]

lol

[ErnieTheBear]

I wish I had known about this ahead of time, because someone sure could have had mine.

[chuchucuhi]

Well once the high wears off and they go back to restocking the shelves of rented videos they might come to the distinction of what marketing is...possibly.

[tm_anon]

Does the band not realize Dr Pepper did something amazing by even giving away as much as they did? They did everything possible, advertised ahead of time when the window would be, how long there was and even extended the window by almost a full day. The Band had no contract with Dr Pepper to do this and did nothing to either encourage or discourage this, nor did they offer extra bandwidth in order to ensure the distribution of the coupons for the free Dr Pepper. If your neighbor said he'd give someone else a Dr Pepper on a certain date if you tied your shoes differently by the end of today and you did it, but the person your neighbor promised the Dr Pepper to couldn't make it on that date, you couldn't sue your neighbor for it and win. The judge would laugh you out of court or even hold you in contempt for even attempting something like this.

[chrisfrary]

Well I got mine and several for different family members, but yes the site was horribly slow, if it even loaded at all. I knew they extended it like 6 hours but not another whole day.

[benjwah]

If Axl gave a crap about "the fans", he'd stop calling it "Guns n Roses" and call it "Axl Rose & his merry band of session musicians".

[baco63]

Sounds like GNR is more upset that people wanted a Dr Pepper more than there new album,

[Dr_Zinj]

Guns n Roses should shut the heck up. Dr Pepper has no contractual arrangement with the band over the promotion. Neither is receiving money from the other for anything.

As far as I'm concerned, American's have a potential class action suit against Dr Pepper for fraudulent advertising. They said they'd give a free soda to every American if GNR brought out their album in 2008, and every other condition is in legalistic small print that virtually no one heard or saw.

Dr Pepper is basically reneging on their bet. I'm not going to be a Pepper anymore.

Wouldn't you like to stop being a Pepper too?

[sanenazok]

A class action lawsuit over free soda! Get a grip already.

[this1!]

dr_zinj, not sure what kind of logic (if you dare call it that) you used to surmise your idiotic post, but please its excruciatingly painful to read. I agree with you about GNR but as for as Dr Pepper, your wrong, to put it simply. You said it yourself, there was fine print included, and they did give every American the opportunity for their free soda, they had a site up, they extended the deadline by an entire day, and even implemented a call-in service. Lastly it was a free giveaway, how can you sue for damages on something with no monetary value?

[enidesigns]

While the fact of the matter is understandable, I have a hard time believing that people would make *that* big of a deal over a soda....just one stupid little soda.

Is this what our great nation has resorted to? Im ashamed.

[M C]

Two things:

1. America: where people get trampled for cheap flat panel TVs and threaten lawsuits over a free can of sugar water.

2. Let me get this straight: GnR's lawyer says GnR's fans are stupid? Or is it Axl himself who thinks this? Or are they?

[this1!]

In response,

1. Spot on.

2. Im pretty sure its a combination of the following, in order of magnitude greatest to least, Axl himself is stupid, axl thinks his fans are stupid, Soriano thinks Axl is stupid, GNR fans are stupid, people in general are stupid.

End Transmission.

[aar0on]

I was pretty mad that I was never able to get thru to the site and get my free soda. However, I had a whole case of the stuff in my fridge, so I quickly drank my worries away.

[erikschmidt]

Interesting. Dr. Pepper's "fun giveaway" wasn't done out of charity. Obviously they wanted to increase brand awareness. As a trademark issue, it seems the question is whether fans thought GNR was associated with the giveaway, and whether GNR's brand suffered as the result of Dr. Pepper's inability to deliver on its initial promise.

But of course, by going the legal attack route, GNR's "think of the fans" attack on Dr. Pepper may backfire.