Pepsi's Unique Marketing Strategy

Pepsi is preparing a year-long marketing campaign in the United States in which up to a billion digital music tracks will be given away which could seriously hurt Apple. Based on the prices charged by Apple, the largest online music retailer, the offer could be worth up to $1 billion (£490 million).

Crucially, the drinks group is believed to be teaming up with Amazon.com, the online retailer vying with Apple’s iTunes music store, to distribute the giveaway tracks.It is also thought that the music will be distributed free of the digital rights management (DRM) technology that limits where legitimately downloaded tracks can be played.

PepsiCo is planning to place tokens on five billion drink containers. Consumers will have to collect five tokens to qualify for free tracks. In theory, the campaign could flood the market with $1 billion of free music (Apple charges 99 cents per DRM-free track), but redemption rates on these types of offers are usually low, at about 2 per cent.

mixing Pepsi with music and taking marketing completely online this really is an interesting effort by Pepsi which in theory could hurt Apple but lets wait and watch (via Times)