“Coca-Cola is to team up with Apple for a substantial iTunes promotional initiative as part of the launch strategy for its calorie-free Coke Zero brand,” Nicola Clark reports for Brand Republic.
“The soft-drinks firm is negotiating a deal with Apple that will see Coca-Cola-sponsored content appear on iTunes, and its consumers offered iTunes discounts,” Clark reports.
Clark reports, “The deal follows the closure of download site Mycokemusic last week. The site, which launched in 2004, featured more than 250,000 songs, but music files downloaded from it were not compatible with Apple’s iPod… Insiders believe the iTunes tie-up could help Coca-Cola maintain its edge in the competitive UK soft-drinks market.”
“Pepsi secured a similar deal to Coca-Cola with Apple in the US in 2004, with a deal to distribute 1m songs through Apple’s iTunes online music store,” Clark reports. “In the US, Coca-Cola already runs its own branded music and entertainment website Stageside.tv.”
Full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Stageside, wha? Boy, if even we’ve never heard of it before, that ain’t good. Checking it out, we see that it is nothing but a “coming soon” page promising “exclusive live performances, behind-the-scenes footage, and personal interviews.” As opposed to impersonal interviews, we suppose. Anyway, back on topic: FINALLY! The number one soft drink company and the number one online music company finally get together! Our Pepsi-assaulted (only during iTunes promotions) taste buds thank Coke for finally wising up. Now bring it to the U.S., please!
May this day mark the end of giant swaths of territory that never see an official iTunes Store promo bottle and awful, muddled third-party iTunes TV promos forevermore!
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Related articles:
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Pepsi’s Apple iTunes promo nightmare, 5 million songs redeemed total; included in 70 million songs total – April 28, 2004
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Tab! Give us Tab, man!
I don’t drink any of it anymore, but I always loved Coke better than Pepsi. Glad to see this partnership happen and hope it blows up big.
“Coke Zero… ….. …..”
ah.. I got nuthin.
Soda is very very very bad. Good for Apple though.
This won’t do well for Apple’s current worker relations headache. Now they look like they are abusing workers in China and partnering with people that are killing union leaders in Columbia.
Agreed. I don’t drink the stuff myself anymore but it’s good to see that iTunes will get some more market exposure this way. Woohoo!
Coke Zero…damn…hopefully, it will no be limited to Zero, as I only have a taste for the Diet Coke.
This appears to be only in the UK. Any plans on doing this here in the US?
soda is fine,
nike/coke is the way
is it me or does Coke have a new version-gimic like every 6 months?
vanilla, and cherry, and classic, and lime, and lemmon, zero calories, one calorie, a few calories, soy, engineered, etc
Soda is horrible for you. Even as a shareholder of Apple, who stands to gain more customers from this promotion, I hate being associated with soda. I’d like to see some Apple/iTunes/Nike/Bottled Water promotions. Get the US’s fat asses (generalized) off of the couch, out of the drive-thrus and onto the tracks and trails.
As long as they don’t join forces with McDonalds.
MDN MW – Go outside and get some fresh AIR.
Coke, Pepsi, Tab, Royal Crown, phooey! it’s all battery acid to me!!! One thing they are good for though — cleaning bugs off your windshield. Just don’t get any on the paint or you’ll be watching it peel off.
I wish they’d put free songs with Fresca (which is a Coke product)! I’d double my music library in a month!
“Soda is horrible for you.”
Most of it is, but Fresca, while not considered a diet drink, has no calories, no carbs, no sugar, no caffeine, no sodium and doesn’t taste like a diet drink. Come on Apple! Free music with Fresca!
This is funny. I love all the non-soda drinking Mac users here. If this were a Microsoft board, people would be asking Apple to start a pizza promotion at the same time.
Maybe MDN is right: Mac Users are smarter and now possibly healthier. Perhaps we’ll all just outlive the windows users and gain market share that way.
“Hmmmm…”: This is a diet drink we’re talking about. It’s not going to make anyone any fatter.
But I won’t drink Coke Zero. Don’t like aspartame. I like Diet Coke with Splenda, but that seems to be the red-headed stepchild of the Coke lineup. Sometimes I can’t even find it in the grocery store. Meanwhile, Pepsi’s Splenda drink, Pepsi One, is always well-stocked. Ah, well. Prices being equal, I prefer Pepsi anyway.
(Is it just me, or does Coca-Cola remind anyone of Apple in the 90’s — too many products? Coke, Diet Coke, Diet Coke w/Splenda, Coke Zero, C2, not to mention all the flavored variations.)
New Coke Slogan
When you can’t beat them, join them!
“Now they look like they are abusing workers in China and partnering with people that are killing union leaders in Columbia”
Maybe this promotion will go as good (actually, as bad) as the Pepsi one did and this’ll all be over very soon. I can forgive Apple for a lot, but now they’re pushing it. Coke is the scum of the planet when it comes to worker rights and their world wide abuse in 3rd world countries. And we don’t even want to begin with the negative health effects their softdrink products introduced to the rest of the free world decades ago.
Bad Apple. Bad, bad Apple.
Coke Zero…. Zero… as in how many of those I’ll be buying. Sadly, the full octane stuff is healthier than the low cal/no cal varieties.
MW case, as in Ill take a case of the regular stuff. Better yet, give me Mexican Coke.
Clive, thats a hilarious take.
Hello all. Hey, coke, pepsi, its all the same to me, just have free tunes —– OH yes, be sure to leave some room in the bottle so we can tilt it sideways and see which bottles have the free tunes. I just loved that. Twenty bottles, 18 free tunes.
OK, OK so even I mess up once in a while. lol
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N.
Anybody drink water anymore?
‘stageside.tv’ Its going to be like the AOL live stuff i bet.
Yes i do drink water . . . . . that’s been carbonated, dietmountaindewinated, windowwasherinated, and aluminuminated – which makes me need to urinate(d)
Does that suffice?
“I’d like to see some Apple/iTunes/Nike/Bottled Water promotions.”
Better but Coke, Pepsi etc are all the same companies manufacturing and bottling all the bottled water, sports water etc. Same guys. There are a few water companies that are subsidiaries of the soda companies, but only a few.
Sorry for the typo. That should read: “There are a few water companies that AREN’T subsidiaries of the soda companies, but only a few.
Is it me…
…or do I find these word/phrase hot-linked ads a bit weird — they don’t seem to relate to the content of the article/paragraph/sentence…
MacBill,
I’ll join you for a drink of water anytime.
LordRobin,
“This is a diet drink we’re talking about. It’s not going to make anyone any fatter.”
Time has an interesting article about how we are losing our ability to judge the caloric content of foods because we substitute in so much calorie-free sweetener.
http://www.time.com/time/archive/preview/0,10987,1200762,00.html
Anyway, it’s not about the Zero. It’s about Coca-cola and so many other food corps appealing to children. For Coke it’s commercials with Polar bears, Santa and kids drinking and enjoying coke. For McDonald’s it’s about including a toy prize for eating a cheeseburger or nuggets and trans-fat loaded french fries. It’s about portraying junk-food as wholesome while targeting children. It’s about social responsibility.
For the record – I tried to disprove my nutritionist wife on everything she said about my eating habits when we first met. After all my research and fact-finding missions – I only proved her right. And now I thank her for it.
@macromancer
Mexican Coke is the best…I get in the bodegas in NYC all the time. It’s a completely different drink.
We need MyMexicanCokePoints.com, I guess.
Mexican Coke? I never seen that. Where can i find (in NYC)?
thegrey . . .
It’s right in a thesaurus next to verb tense . . . . you douche
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“Hmmmm…”: Look, I understand what you’re saying, but as long as you use artificial sweetners with your eyes open and your brain engaged, you’ll be fine. I haven’t lost my ability to judge the caloric content of food. It’s right there on the package!
I decided a few years back to get off my butt and get my weight down. I dropped 35 pounds. In three years, I backslid exactly once. One of the things that’s kept me in line is my refusal to drink any caloric beverage. Since I can’t stand NutriSweet, that meant water and unsweetened iced tea.
After two years, that got really, really old. I found myself cheating because I wanted to drink something with flavor, or because I needed a caffeine hit to keep my brain going for the last hour of work (and I can’t stand coffee either).
Plus, it’s damned hard to find unsweetened iced tea in a bottle. The grocery store doesn’t sell it except in individual bottles, and it’s next to impossible to find it cold in a convenience store. (Here in Ohio, I know of one chain that carries Lipton unsweetened in the cooler.)
So when Pepsi and Coke came out with Splenda versions of their drinks, it was a godsend. It let me have my cola fix without drinking the equivalent of a candy bar.
I don’t disagree with your nutritionist views. They’re right: we’d all be better off if we got back to basics as far as diet is concerned. But you gotta be realistic. It’s just not going to happen. Most of us just don’t have the will, the desire, or the time to spend completely reinventing our lifestyles to the degree necessary to “do it right”. I watch my calories, my fat, and my weight. My wife does Weight Watchers. It’s working for both of us. I’m not about to change everything I drink and eat. I’ve got way too much else on my mind.
So forgive us the occasional use of Splenda (or [yucch] NutriSweet). Sure, it’s unnatural. Sure we’d be better off controlling our calories without resorting to it. But the for the vast majority of ordinary folks leading 21st-century American lives, the only realistic alternative is obesity and diabetes.
I’ve never tried Mexican Coke, but I made the mistake of buying Fresca at a Mexican Farmers Market once, and it was NOT the same thing. US Fresca is sweetened with Aspartame (but doesn’t taste like other Aspartame drinks). Mexican Fresca is straight sugar. I try to avoid sugar like the plague six days a week (Body For Life), so I was shocked when I read the back of the (glass) bottle and saw that it had 45 grams of sugar per serving! Won’t make that mistake again. The funny thing was, even disregarding the sugar difference, it didn’t taste anything like US Fresca. Why does it have the same name?
Anyone remember this?
http://www.geekculture.com/joyoftech/joyarchives/527.html
iCokemusic?
Speaking of iTMS, is it just me or has it not been updated with new music yet this week? The free songs are the same and all the new releases are from last week. What’s up?
can apple please send some of the Coke Zero to the iPod sweatshops in China?? I hear that they’re VERY thirsty..
Coke eh? I’ll bet the Steve was visualizing flipping off Scully when he made this deal.
Fresca is owned by Coke!
What’s next? Yoo-Hoo and Yahoo?
“I’d like to teach the world to sing
In perfect harmony
I’d like to hold it in my arms
And keep it company
(That’s the song I hear)
I’d like to see the world for once
(Let the world sing today)
All standing hand in hand
And hear them echo through the hills
For peace throughout the land
That’s the song I hear
(That’s the song I hear)
Let the world sing today
(Let the whole wide world keep singing)
A song of peace that echoes on
And never goes away”
Except France, Microsoft, Sim Wong Hoo and Rob Glaser. Oh yeah, and idiot tech. critics with their heads up their ass. And Gateway. And anyone who thinks protected WMA is neat. And Mrs. Rosa Lowenstein of Ft. Wayne who has an obnoxious, loud beagle that won’t shut up at night. And the makers of pizza rolls. Long story.
“Fresca is owned by Coke!”
I know (I said that in my first post), but it doesn’t appear that you’ll get free songs with Fresca, or any other Coke products except Coke Zero.
Ampar, I think you’re onto something here!
Thanks, ndelc. I knew an ndelc on TMO a long time ago. Coincidence or Joincidence? (obscure reference)
Grapefruit and carbonation might give birth to new star clusters. Something I read. Of course, belching must have meant something to Roald Dahl. Great stories.
LordRobin,
“but as long as you use artificial sweeteners with your eyes open and your brain engaged, you’ll be fine.”
Let’s swap a few words out in your statement: but as long as you choose your operating system with your eyes open and your brain engaged, you’ll be fine. My friend, it is with trust (or blindness) that the poison is fed with a spoon. You refer to the few who analyze their eating/drinking choices.
I admire you for your choices which so many other refuse to make. I openly admit, Splenda is my sweetener of choice. I only drink water and iced tea with Splenda. So I don’t disagree with your statements or philosophies. As I stated, I stand against Coca-Cola and their practices – not the sweeteners. I wouldn’t expect Apple to compromise just to make a buck. Of course, that’s my opinion and I’d guess more people drink soda than not.
Again LordRobin, I admire you for your choices. I am excited to see that the few Mac readers who spoke up make conscious choices for a better and healthier lifestyle.