Pepsi’s latest iTunes Music Store promotion kicked off on Monday, January 31, 2005. Details have been posted to Apple’s Web site; customers in the U.S. who purchase various Pepsi soft drinks with specially marked caps stand a one-in-three chance of winning a free song on iTunes. Now PepsiCo Inc. has revealed plans to show a new television advertisement promoting the sweepstakes during Sunday’s Super Bowl XXXIX.
Pepsi has called the ad “Bottle Songs,” and it runs in 45 and 30 second spots. The spot features “a number of popular tracks from a series of music genres” and illustrate “how winning a free song from the Pepsi iTunes promotion is as easy as opening a bottle of Pepsi.”
The giveaway runs through April 11, 2005. Bottles of various Pepsi-owned soft drinks — and some cups used for Pepsi fountain beverages — will contain special caps or bottoms that may reveal a redemption code that can be used to get a single song for free from the iTunes Music Store. Pepsi is offering up to 200 million songs — twice the maximum number as a promotion the company did with Apple last year.
The 2004 giveaway was also promoted during last year’s Super Bowl, with a spot that featured pop-punk band Green Day’s cover of “I Fought the Law” and several teens who had been accused by the RIAA of illegal music downloading. That promotion was plagued with low redemption rates, however, as Pepsi distributors were slow to get bottles with the special caps to retailers. Ultimately, Pepsi drinkers only redeemed about 5 million of the 100 million songs.
Pepsi has expanded the scope of this year’s giveaway: Customers will find the special caps not only on Pepsi, Diet Pepsi and Sierra Mist soft drinks, but also on Wild Cherry Pepsi, Mountain Dew, Diet Mountain Dew and Mountain Dew Code Red. What’s more, winners will automatically be entered in a sweepstakes to win one of 1,700 iPods minis being given away — one for each hour of the promotion.