Apple eyes fizz in Pepsi iTunes giveaway

Apple Computer is once again looking to Pepsi to provide added pop to the iTunes Music Store.

According to a posting on Apple's Web site, Pepsi plans to distribute up to 200 million free songs in a promotion that kicks off at the end of the month.

As with an earlier promotion, codes good for one free music track will be found in one in three specially marked bottles of Pepsi products. When winners redeem a free song, they will also be entered in a drawing for a free silver iPod Mini. Pepsi will give away one iPod Mini every hour during the promotion, roughly 1,700 iPod Minis in all.

The two companies teamed up last January on a promotion designed to give away 100 million free songs. Though some people found a way to determine which bottles had the free code, only 5 million songs were redeemed. Some bottles were also late to reach store shelves and, as a result, the Pepsi promotion was partly to blame for the iTunes music store missing its goal of 100 million song sales in its first year.

Whereas the first promotion was designed to kick-start sales in the relatively new iTunes store, Apple is on steadier footing now, with sales of both music and iPods continuing to rise sharply.

An Apple representative declined to comment on the Pepsi deal. A Pepsi representative was not immediately available for comment.

The promotion will kick off at midnight Jan. 31. Entries in the iPod Mini giveaway need to be made by April 30, while song winners will have until May 23 to redeem their free track. There is a limit of 10 free song redemptions per day and a total of 200 for the overall promotion.

The contest rules note that Pepsi is the sole sponsor of the promotion.

[shoffmueller]

remember the first promotion...

... when you could see if you were a winner or loser before you bought the pepsi by tilting the bottle and looking?

[John G. Melone]

Pepsi iTunes promotion

In the Bay Area, Richmond and East Bay did not get bottle caps
until one week before the end of the promotion. This included
Safeway and other major Chains and small 7-11 type stores and
they were on the shelves for weeks after the promotion that
Kicked on on Super Bowl Sunday. In San Francisco itself, All
store had the caps within a week of kickoff. A night watchman in
San Francisco told me they had them in the Pepsi Machines at
work on Super Bowl Sunday. Since I drink Pepsi and have iTunes,
I looked for stores that carried the promotion. Of the 80 songs I
got in the promotion only five came from the East Bay Retail
stores. The Richmond Safeway at MacDonald and San Pablo is in
walking distance of four blocks. Other Stores are over a mile.

I Teach Computer in San Francisco and even the Mom & Pop
stores had the promotion bottles and I would bring home a half
dozen in the backpack on BART (Subway/underground/under
the bay).