Amazon.com and Pepsi have teamed up for a new free music cross promotion that will see Pepsi drinkers earn free music with Pepsi purchases.
“Pepsi Stuff” is billed as a “massive collect-and-get program” where “consumers can download the most DRM-free MP3 music available anywhere.” In layman’s terms, drink lots of Pepsi, get DRM free music for free on Amazon.
Starting February 1, Pepsi users must “bank” their points on PepsiStuff.com to redeem them for music on Amazon MP3.
Cross promotions of this kind aren’t new, but it does show the seriousness of Amazon to promote its DRM free music store to a wider audience (Pepsi has previously given away iTunes downloads). It was only 12 months ago that we wrote about the inevitable death of DRM, yet one year later in 2008 the market is now focused on which DRM free music provider comes out on top, and we wouldn’t have it any other way. Hopefully the increasingly cut-throat competition will result in downwards pricing pressure as well in the coming months.
amazon is really turning on the heat. Lets see how apple reacts.
The selection of songs has gotten a lot better. Kudos for amazon for breaking new ground.
kudos for Pepsi - also known as one of the best companies with crystal marketing image.
has pepsi announced this? what are your sources Duncan about the “collect and get”
i saw similar news on nytimes.com today.
Man, if only it had been Coke that made this deal…it would have been a great way to use Coke Rewards points!
patentman
direct contact from Amazon.
Interesting… By the way….
Does anyone know why you have to purchase the songs on Amazon and itunes one at a time. Why don’t they have a shopping cart for the songs you purchase and purchase them all at once. If I have missed something please let me know… It would make shopping a lot easier. I have emailed amazon and surprise… they have not responded.
What a combination???
http://gameimpacto.blogspot.com
It seems every one wants to share the pie of Music and Movies now..
Another interesting angle to this - years ago, in the Web 1.0 days, PepsiStuff was an alliance between Pepsi and Yahoo (see http://docs.yahoo.com/docs/pr/release814.html). Very interesting to see that Amazon is now the fulfillment partner, especially in a domain in which Yahoo hopes to compete.
When you say “drink lots of Pepsi, get DRM free music for free on Amazon” … what exactly does that mean?
How much Pepsi do I have to drink before I get a single song? 10, 100, 1000?
You collect points. Points? POINTS??? Give me a break. At least when Apple gave it away, you got a song.
Microsoft too sells music though points. And people answer: Microsoft sells music?!?
Exactly.
As content creators with a focus on new and emerging media, we understand the challenges surrounding the monetization ability of digital content. In this light the debate around protecting content from ‘unauthorised’ downloads / usage has intrigued me right from the beginning both as a consumer as well as a creator.
While iTunes and more recently even sections of Bollywood have been able to sell DRM protected content and reaped moderate benefits, introducing the idea of ‘paid’ digital media to consumers, DRM implementation is still hobbled by lack of universal standards, high costs and overstated efficacy. As a pioneer in Short Form Content (SFC) business in India, we have evaluated DRM specifically in our context (SFC) as opposed to the holy grail of digital content. And we believe, A new medium needs a new idiom. The success of the quirky creative endeavors has been fuelled by a viral internet platform. The content creators allow (via their web sites / channels] users to carry (embed) their work and share it with the rest of the cyber world without paying a penny.
This massive traffic and organized distribution has created new markets and made it easier to access the old ones. For some amateurs there may not be much after a short spate of viewership but a serialized, well marketed amateur video can evolve into a brand. I strongly feel Internet is a beautiful medium to help content travel to various markets and demographics. Instead of locking it down be prepared to re-purpose / re-orient your product to any distribution channels such as Mobile or even Print.
(comments posted by: saurabh@phonethics.in)
i was getting really starting to get excited about this pepsi amazon thing …and then saurabh just killed the whole thing for me with his essay about DRM, idioms, and whatever this SFC thing is he’s talking about. dangit.
What’s interesting about the promotion is unlike the previous Pepsi/iTunes giveaway back in 2004, it seems like you need to purchase 5 bottle caps to get a singel download. Seems like a lot of Pepsi to drink for a single free track.