“Digital music goes prime time during this weekend’s Super Bowl. Pepsi-Cola’s launch Sunday of the highest-profile ad campaign yet for online music is expected to dramatically broaden its reach. ‘Parents who maybe didn’t pay much attention before will sit up and take notice when they see it on the Super Bowl,’ says Phil Leigh, an analyst at research firm Inside Digital Media,” Jefferson Graham reports for USA Today.
“Pepsi is promoting a contest to offer 100 million free downloads at Apple’s iTunes Music Store. The Super Bowl spot, before an expected audience of 90 million, ‘gets the subject of digital music to people who haven’t considered it before,’ says Ted Cohen, senior vice president at EMI, home of Norah Jones and Janet Jackson,” Graham reports. “Pepsi expects redemption rates of 10% to 20%. Apple and Pepsi would not discuss financial details.”
Graham reports, “Analysts expect Apple will reap huge rewards from the contest. Analyst Charles Wolf of Wall Street research firm Needham & Co. estimates the firm is selling 2 million songs per week. ‘This campaign will get them to 5-10 million per week by summer, or 200 million songs for the year,’ he says. The launch of iTunes last April revitalized the digital music business, which hadn’t found much consumer success with initial alternatives to unauthorized sites like Kazaa. Apple has sold 30 million downloads at 99 cents each. It claims 70% market share.”
Full article here.
Looks good. As I mentioned in a previous post a 20% redemption is excellent. I believe the actual time frame is only through the end of March after which time the promotion ends…. unless PepsiCo decides to extend it (which I doubt). Don’t look for a McDonalds promotion anytime soon as they have a deal with Coca Cola which is running a new promotion with MusicMatch.
If McDonald’s does something in the future with Coke/MusicMatch expect Pepsi spinoff Yum Brands to get in the act as well. Yum’s includes Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, KFC, A&W and Captain D’s.
Not like it’ll matter. If iTunes is doing 5-10 million songs sold per week by the summer, MusicMatch and Napster will be closing their doors…
I’ve always thought Apple and McDonald’s should get up a COMPUTER promotion: Buy a Big Mac-Win a Mac. Makes perfect sense to me. Yea, I know Steve Jobs doesn’t eat meat, but he doesn’t drink soda either.
“Yea, I know Steve Jobs doesn’t eat meat,”
Perhaps a promotion with Whole Foods or Wild Oats:
‘Buy pesticide free food, win a virus free Mac’ OR,
‘Our apples don’t have pesticides, worms or viruses’
“I’ve always thought Apple and McDonald’s should get up a COMPUTER promotion: Buy a Big Mac-Win a Mac. Makes perfect sense to me. Yea, I know Steve Jobs doesn’t eat meat, but he doesn’t drink soda either.” – NoPCZone
A better idea will be a random PMG5 component (a case, a fan, a motherboard, etc.) with every combo meal. Then, the promo can say things like “Collect all 2500 parts” or “Assembly required”.
Coke’s promotion with Musicmatch does not preclude Coke promoting iTunes. It’s like this: the vendors want to be viewed as cool by the kids. If Apple continues to grow iPod and iTunes sales at this record pace, vendors will have no choice but jump behind iTunes. Everyone eventually follows the leader. So expect other high profile companies to jump in to the iTunes promotion. It’s the most exciting thing to happen in a long time.
i hope this will help apple further dominate the market and crush all the imitators and competitors.
I must admire “veggiemac’s” ideas. I thought they were funny.
“Nobody’s” idea is quite original. It still made me laugh.
Made me think of the dude that got a dual-G5 for x-mas from his parents then gutted it and put his PC in it with neon. Made me want to CHOKE him! I just have to laugh it off or I will go insane thinking about it….ala MONK.
Don’t forget that Pepsi also owns Lay’s (which includes Doritos, Tostitos, etc.). I don’t (and won’t) drink Pepsi, but I’d certainly eat more chips if an iTMS promotion got extended to those.
“Coke’s promotion with Musicmatch does not preclude Coke promoting iTunes. It’s like this: the vendors want to be viewed as cool by the kids. If Apple continues to grow iPod and iTunes sales at this record pace, vendors will have no choice but jump behind iTunes.”
Well, yes. And no.
First off, Coke would never sign a deal with Apple while the Pepsi promotion is running. You certainly don’t want someone with a Coke bottle-top to redeem to run into a “Pepsi” commercial. I’m sure that iTunes will be running Pepsi ads for the next 3 months–you’re going to put the Coke ad right next to it? I don’t think so.
That said, once the Pepsi promotion ends, there’s no reason that Coke wouldn’t do a promotion with Apple. However, I doubt that Coke will want to wait until April or so. So they have to go with second-best MusicMatch.
Speaking of which, that’s one thing I would love to know–rankings behind iTMS. Who’s #2 and #3 (and #4 and #5 for that matter)? I mean, the other two competitors (Wal-Mart is still in beta, so there really are only two competitors) talk about iTMS but never about each other…
I have read about an international competition by Coke that uses GPS devices hidden inside fake Coke bottles. When rumours about mini-iPods surfaced i thought that Pepsi would do something similar with such devices during the iTunes promotion. Of course this is not the case but technically it would be possible.
I have left an original 5GB iPod with rare and exclusive tracks at the following coordinates…
No, no, no! What I meant was that Pepsi could hide mini iPods into its bottles or cans. The devices are certainly small enough to do that.
“No, no, no! What I meant was that Pepsi could hide mini iPods into its bottles or cans. The devices are certainly small enough to do that.” – Sol
Uhh, I can just picture that. A boy walks into a grocery store and picks up a 6-pack Pepsi then shakes it until it bursts everywhere. What, no mini??
HAHAHA Gotta love the dude for pulling a prank.
The kid that got a G5 for x-mas didn’t really gut it.
http://www.overclockers.com/tips1133/