Pepsi Downloads Very Poor
Although there was a potential 100 million available, that was never achievable. A 20 % response would have been excellent (responses usually are between 5 and 20 percent). Unfortunately this was not achieved. Based on the evidence, Pepsi's bottlers didn't get with the program. Here's a report from Mac Minute:
Quote:
Pepsi-iTunes promo produces weak redemption numbers
April 28 - 16:01 EDT__ An Apple representative said Wednesday that only about 5 million free songs have been given away through the Pepsi-iTunes promotion -- a lot less than the 100 million songs that could have been redeemed. "We had hoped the redemptions would have been higher," Katie Cotton, Apple's vice president of worldwide corporate communications, told CNET News.com. Consumers have with winning bottle cap codes have until Friday to redeem them.
Pepsi-iTunes promo produces weak redemption numbers
April 28 - 16:01 EDT__ An Apple representative said Wednesday that only about 5 million free songs have been given away through the Pepsi-iTunes promotion -- a lot less than the 100 million songs that could have been redeemed. "We had hoped the redemptions would have been higher," Katie Cotton, Apple's vice president of worldwide corporate communications, told CNET News.com. Consumers have with winning bottle cap codes have until Friday to redeem them.
Comments
Originally posted by MacsRGood4U
Although there was a potential 100 million available, that was never achievable. A 20 % response would have been excellent (responses usually are between 5 and 20 percent). Unfortunately this was not achieved. Based on the evidence, Pepsi's bottlers didn't get with the program. Here's a report from Mac Minute:
Pepsi had perhaps the worst distribution of any promotion I've ever seen. Well *after* the iTMS promo was supposed to start, I was still seeing their "caps for caps" thing. Lame.
Originally posted by Ebby
I just started hunting for yellow caps and clearing out pepsi shelves last 2 weeks ago. It was fun, but prefer cans, and Coke.
Amen, I am sippin' an ice cold can as I type.
Well I got my 30 in..did my best and drank far too much Pepsi. They should do water next...people would be more likely to drown themselves in Dasani or Aquafina than coke/pepsi
Originally posted by hmurchison
LOL so the "tilt and peek" method basically had NO effect.
Well I got my 30 in..did my best and drank far too much Pepsi. They should do water next...people would be more likely to drown themselves in Dasani or Aquafina than coke/pepsi
Na, not us Americans!
Just no appeal, whatsoever. Stupid commercial, stupid concept. Surly kids that you can't feel sorry for (they BROKE THE LAW...screw 'em) and it just became another Super Bowl commercial, but a rather lame one.
Add to that the distribution problems talked about by so many AND the fact that it didn't seem to get much advertising beyond that idiot Super Bowl spot (what average person goes to Apple or Pepsi's website on any sort of regular, day-to-day basis?).
The whole damn thing was a stinker, from the get-go.
I said, nearly 6 months ago, that Apple - with this being the 20th anniversary of the Mac and all - should've simply made a kick-ass, visually eye-popping 30-60 second "lifestyle" spot, showng off the hardware, the iLife 04 stuff, the iPod/iTMS/iTunes thing and end it with some cool, catchy and clever tagline that incorporated the notion of the 20th anniversary and that they (Apple) are only getting better, cooler, etc.
Done properly - with style, unforgettable visuals, wit, clever writing and/or a well-liked, popular celebrity or two - it could've been something quite remarkable. A worthy successor to the chick throwing the hammer spot from 20 years ago. And everyone here would've dug it to no end and your typical non-Mac user would've actually said "HOLY SHIT...I need to check them out!!! I didn't know you could [fill in the blank]!"
But noooooo...
Instead, they threw their lot in with Pepsi and it sucked massively.
Great going, guys. Don't listen to me...
Originally posted by pscates
I called this back in the early winter: it'll be a dud/flop (search the archives, because I said it here).
Flop?
I don't see anything as having gone wrong or failed. The promotion generated a buzz around both brands. It accomplished it's intended purpose quite well.
Way to go Pepsi
Originally posted by dfiler
Flop?
I don't see anything as having gone wrong or failed. The promotion generated a buzz around both brands. It accomplished it's intended purpose quite well.
5 million out of a potential 100 million? A flop in my book. Buzz? Did this magical "buzz" sell a worthwhile, significant number of Macs or create a huge flood of switchers? Not that I can tell. So flop.
"Buzz" with nothing following or of any real substance doesn't really mean much, IMO. In this idiotic, flash-in-the-pan, shallow culture, I suppose "buzz" means everything to some?
Buzz = someone uttered the word "Apple" or "iTunes" a couple more times than they ordinarily would? Or drank an extra Pepsi or two? Does that translate into anything remotely worthwhile and significant? Honestly? Some 12-year-old got a free Avril or 50 Cent song one time?
Flop. A lame flop.
If 80 million-plus songs were redeemed and there was true excitement and this big surge of REAL interest in Apple, I'd totally be on board and think it was worthwhile and a great promotion. All fluff (and "buzz"?) and not much else, from all I can tell.
Maybe the lack of follow-up advertising and those bottle distribution problems shoulder most of the blame, things out of Apple's hands, I realize.
But still a flop in the overall, big-picture scheme of things. That's just true.
But I guess many here won't believe or accept that until they hear Jobs or Fred Anderson cop to it in a conference call a year or so from now (just like the "Switcher" debacle, which was another big, lame do-nothing waste of time and resources that didn't result in much at all...and I think I called that one right too, at the outset).
"Ooh, it DID suck...pscates was right!"
Originally posted by hmurchison
LOL so the "tilt and peek" method basically had NO effect.
Well I got my 30 in..did my best and drank far too much Pepsi. They should do water next...people would be more likely to drown themselves in Dasani or Aquafina than coke/pepsi
Actually it did. After buying several bottles, and realizing tilters had already gotten all the songs, I stopped buying Pepsi to try and win songs. A lot of people in my area felt the same way--there was no chance of winning because the game had been rigged.
Between that and the lousy and sporadic distribution, I'm not surprised this tanked. I was really excited about it for the first week, then really soured on it. So did the local 7-11, who had so many people ripping up the big gulp cups on the sly to find a winner that they refused to sell them anymore.
It sucks that it didn't go off better, but it's mostly Pepsi's fault, not Apple's. And God, that commercial blew. Great song, lousy kids. And could they at least have picked a kid who could enunciate properly for the only dialogue in the spot?
The bottles should have rolled out earlier, the game should have lasted longer and there should have been more advertising. This coulda been a big hit.
I just hope it doesn't sour Apple or other potential partners on future promotions.
5 million out of a potential 100 million? A flop in my book.
I guess it depends on your expectations for any soda or website promotion.
Millions of people logged onto the iTMS to redeem their free songs. Could more millions have been redeemed? Sure, but that doesn't make the promotion a flop. After having gone through the process of selecting and downloading a song, these people will be familiar and comfortable with the iTMS shopping experience.
As for Pepsi. How much more successful could a promotion be. I mean really, how many cap bottom give-aways draw in tons of new customers?
What did you expect?
The world was never going to stop and take notice simply because of a single commercial, a few numbers on the bottom of a bottle cap, and a free downloads.
Mediocre? Yes
Flop... I vote no. Consumer response was only slightly worse than I expected.
I found none of that size around here, until today. The Promo ends tomorrow, and finally the 1 liters are released. I know the manager, and he would keep me up to speed as to what his driver brought in.
He wasn't trying to sell out on other products before putting these out, they just came in late yesterday.
I don't know if Coca-Cola would have been better, because they are real bad about keeping things in-stock in my area, Pepsi is always in-stock. I drink Coke in cans all the time and some weeks, I have to drive out of town to get a cold can. Their are three places within a mile that sell cold cans of coke.
What a mess, maybe this will wake them up as to how poor their execution is.