“Five months after BBDO launched the Pepsi iTunes promotion on the Super Bowl, TBWAChiatDay’s Southern California office is getting a crack at the assignment, landing the estimated $15-20 million business without a review, sources said last week,” Kathleen Sampey reports for AdWeek. “The effort, slated to break during the game next year, will run through the spring.”
“Sources said the reason for the switch to Omnicom Group’s TBWACD in Playa del Rey, Calif., was that Apple Computer CEO Steve Jobs wanted the Apple agency to do the work so he could have more of a say in its creation… BBDO has handled the Pepsi brand since 1964.,” Sampey reports. Full article here.
The first Pepsi iTunes promotion was, how shall we say, less than a rousing success with about 5 million free songs have been given away through a Pepsi promotion, far fewer than the 100 million tracks that could have been redeemed. It did not help that Pepsi bottles with the winning promotions took longer to get into stores than expected.
MacDailyNews Take: If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again! Let’s hope the second try, if it really materializes, is markedly better than the first. First order of business seems to be taken care of: creation of a better ad. Now let’s see if Pepsi can deliver actual bottles with yellow caps into the stores in time; this would help. At least expectations will be nil (instead of sky high) going into this one.
Related MacDailyNews articles:
Somebody’s selling a whole lot of sugared water on Apple.com – January 28, 2004
Analyst: Pepsi iTunes campaign will generate sales of ‘5-10 million songs per week by summer, or 200 million for the year’ – January 29, 2004
Pepsi’s iTunes Super Bowl commercial available here via QuickTime – January 30, 2004
Pepsi’s iTunes ad places near bottom of Super Bowl Ad Meter list – February 02, 2004
The Register: Pepsi iTunes ad ‘likely to go down in history as one of the greatest public relations disasters in history’ – February 02, 2004
A Coke drinker’s forced migration to Pepsi in quest of free Apple iTunes – February 04, 2004
Are Pepsi iTunes caps available in your area? – February 09, 2004
Pepsi iTunes bottle caps take longer to get into stores than expected – March 04, 2004
USC student trashes 2,500 iTunes-Pepsi bottles, redeems winning caps, enjoys a Diet Coke – April 16, 2004
Pepsi’s Apple iTunes promo nightmare, 5 million songs redeemed total; included in 70 million songs total – April 28, 2004
with Apple’s agency – should be a cooler commercial, and maybe, just maybe, get the point across…
… not like last years commercial!
Will it get to the east side of the Pond? I can’t see how it wouldn’t do better the second time around as more people are aware of what it is and what’s going on with it. I don’t know that the improvement would be as big as we’d all like it to be, but it would definitely do better the second go ’round.
I ws quite surprised that the last campaign didn’t work as well as expected. But then again, Pepsi tastes like shit and Coca Cola are our competitors.
What about doing this campaign with a milk company? Get kids/parents drinking something that doesn’t rot your insides…
Just my $0.02
The problem was it so long for the damn bottles to get into stores. In NYC alone, it took like 2 months AFTER the Super Bowl to start trying to redeem the songs.
More… (burp!) Pepsi….
The other thing with Pepsi, if they want to hit the demographics they should probably be putting the caps on Mountain Dew. The Dew demographics are probably much more likely to cash in on the caps.
I love this idea. I think the promotion is dead on, and it’s a perfect vehicle to get people trying out iTunes. The commercials need to be a hell of a lot better, though, and more of them.
I was in a convinience store west of Philly last week and the whole fridge was filled with yellow-topped Pepsi bottles! I bought one but I didn’t win, not that it would have mattered.
me think the problem was not the advertising or the advertising company. as far as i’m concerned the commercial was great. the problem was execution. when it came down to it, Pepsi did not deliver.
for 1, the commercial did not run as ofter as it should. 2nd, bottles were delivered late or in some cases never in some regions.
So a 2nd crack at it may not change anything, if they run into the same issues as before.
Actually, since so many people now know of and use iTMS, they will give away at least 5 times the number, I know I will be on the lookout
Have Coke dumped their download store and then partner with Coke. Pepsi has proven to be unreliable getting their products out.
BTW, didn’t Napster partner with a beer company to give away songs? Whatever happens with the deal?
I hate seeing Apple do this, associating themselves with purveyors of junk.
I’ll never understand cola tastes. One guy above has already stated that Pepsi “tastes like s***”. I prefer Pepsi myself, although I’ll drink Coke if that’s all there is. My best friend won’t drink Coke under any circumstances, can’t stand the stuff, used to drink Pepsi by the two-liter until he got healthy.
Anyone prefer RC?
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2 months after? I never saw one single iTunes Pepsi bottle and I drink about 3 2-liters per week.
Can I redeem the caps I’m still finding in stores today? I found a whole case that was just opened that has the iTunes/Pepsi Promo caps.
no you cant redeem them.
wouldnt it be awesome if BOTH pepsi and coke did it
yeah…right
A cheaper way to do it again would be allow the existing caps to be redeemed and have a new commercial. This way you don’t have to depend on Pepsi’s ability to deliver its product.
Anyone read the research associating carbonated drinks with esophageal cancer?
Gandalf,
Have you seen some of the cultural vomit that’s for sale on the iTMS? I don’t think Apple is overly concerned about the value their music business has for society.
Obviously most of you complainers are in the minority. Apple wants to make money, not make you happy. Pepsi makes money, a lot more money than milk. Look at the DewU promo, thousands of Xboxes given away for free. Even I got one. Image how many iPod mini’s I could fill with that amount of cappage for iTunes… I think doing like a DewU promo with the mini would be a great thing. Instead of downloading songs, when you get 550 free songs you get a free Mt. Dew mini. That would be freaking awesome.
I didn’t see my FIRST iTunes Pepsi bottle until AFTER the promo was OVER!!! Just some promo on the Lakers that I also never heard about.
This time, can we have it on 2 litter bottles and include Pepsi Twist?!?!?! Please?!?!?!?!?!?!
Unbelievably, I NEVER saw ONE Pepsi bottle anywhere in LA — and I was looking hard. The campaign could not possibly have gone any worse.
While I saw a few of the iTunes bottles during the promotion, I saw many more after it was over. Apple and Pepsi should’ve included Mt. Dew and 2 liter bottles, made the odds 1 out of 2 and had the promotion last 6 months. That assumes that Apple Computer is actually interested in spending a significant amount of cash promoting iTMS rather than just taking another blow to Apple’s reputation.