“Pepsi-Cola’s attention-getting Super Bowl ad campaign offering free music downloads from Apple’s iTunes Music Store hasn’t paid off in a big digital sales spike — yet. Bottles with the winning promotions took longer to get into stores than expected,” Jefferson Graham reports for USA Today.
“Specially marked bottles of Pepsi, Diet Pepsi and Sierra Mist offer free download codes in bottle caps. But they arrived in New York last week, four weeks after 90 million viewers saw the Super Bowl ad. The bottles have yet to show up in Los Angeles, the nation’s second-largest media market, and won’t get there until mid-March, Pepsi says,” Graham reports.
”’You can’t spike sales in February if the bottles aren’t there,” says Charles Wolf, an analyst with Wall Street research firm Needham & Co. ‘My guess is there’s going to be a sales increase, but a month later than expected,'” Graham reports.
Graham reports, ”’Marketing 101 is that you don’t advertise something unless you have it out on the shelves,’ says Mark Hughes, CEO of consultant BuzzMarketing. ‘If the caps aren’t out there, what’s the point?’ Pepsi spokesman Dave DeCecco says the company isn’t disappointed. ‘There’s no perfect scenario,’ he says. ‘You can’t push a button and get (the bottles) everywhere.”’
Full article here.
Related MacDailyNews artcile:
Are Pepsi iTunes caps available in your area? – February 09, 2004
None anywhere in New Orleans. Absolutely none. There is some Pepsi promo going on for the Hornets (collect caps that spell H-O-R-N-E-T-S and win something). That promo coincidentally ends on 3-31 when the iTunes deal does as well. Oh well.
Has anyone else experienced this, where a local promotion has effectively locked out a national Pepsi promo?
St. Louis, MO: Just bought my first Sierra Mist yesterday with the iTunes cap – a loser. Mostly I’ve seen the Pepsi bottles – very few Sierra Mist have the cap here.
I’m 10 for 10 on the bottles, the 1 litre bottles make cheating EASY.
Remember, if it says FREE you win, if it says WINNER you loose! Im 2 for 6 on the Big Gulp/Slurpee cups.
If there’s signs of tampering on the BG/Slurpee cups you should call the Health Department. It’s one thing to peek but another thing alltogether to have a cup that someone put their grubby Dick-beaters on then try to drink out of it with a clear mind ECCHH!!!
Oh yeah, Seattle, WA
I found a couple small bottles at Albertsons but it seems like all the 7-11s have the Pepsi and BG cups available.
Can you say FRAUD? I wouldn’t put beyond Pepsi (the Microsoft of the soda world) to screw up the shipping of product in order to limit the number of redemptions. I remember reading Pepsi was figuring on about a 30% redemption rate- otw $30 Million rather than $100 Million. Maybe we should get a couple of Ambulance Chasers and get up a class-action suit. Make mine a Diet Coke…the “Real Thing” that posers try to copy.
I asked Bruno the bartender if he saw any because he keeps pepsi around in bottles and coke on tap. He hasn’t seen any.
NOpczone apple never rolls anything out on time, why would their partners?
I love the conspiricy theory. I have a feeling cheating is on the rise big time. Here in Chicago we finally started getting yellow caps and they all are no winners…
Dayton, OH area here.
They’re all over the place now. I’ve had 20+ winners to date.
God I hate pepsi though!
Washington DC NADA so far.
I have purchased a total of five iTunes Big Gulp sodas at five separate 7-11 markets in So. CA. I filled 4 with Coke, the other with Cherry Coke. I have won 80% – which I think is statistically significant when contrasted with the expected 33% (1 in 3.)
And yes, as I seem to recall, the Cherry Coke-filled cup was the only “please try again.”
All the Pepsi and Sierra mist bottles have Laker’s promos. I think I saw some with an NFL promo, as well.
Finally saw the 1st one today @ work, a Sierra Mist. Opened it and guess what? Please Try Again. It was the only yellow cap in a case of Pepsi products in the Hospital Cafeteria.
The 20oz bottles can be viewed, too, albeit not easily. Working at a convenience store, I have the time to view the caps before purchasing it, I am 12 for 12. From what I have seen from our stock, it is closer to a 50% chance.
I am, also, asking the people I know that come to the register to give me any winning caps they don’t want.
None in New Orleans, none in Eastern Mississippi between Columbus and the gulf.
Somebody else said they talked to a bottler in this area who said they weren’t participating because of some damn NBA promo. I’m sure they’ll show up with 10 days left in the promo. Kind of disappointing.
None yet in Irvine, CA >_<
The promotion ends 4/30/04, NOT 3/31/04!! It says so right on the caps!
And yes, there is a 200 song limit per download.
Woops! I meant per email address!