pepsi Archive

Pepsi is announcing a partnership with Amazon for the new Pepsi Stuff campaign. You’ve seen these before – drink 20,000 cans of Pepsi and get a song free. What’s interesting in the announcement is how they push DRM-free music and how great it is to listen to your music from anywhere and on any device.

"Pepsi Stuff gives consumers choices — many choices: from the prizes they select, to the music they want to hear, to the device they want to play it on," said Cie Nicholson, SVP and chief marketing officer, Pepsi-Cola North America. "We are excited to team up with Pepsi and reward millions of Pepsi
Stuff participants with high-quality DRM-free music downloads from major and independent labels, playable on virtually any device, and an easy downloading experience that doesn’t require special software," said Bill Carr, Amazon.com Vice President for Digital Music and Movies.

Do consumers really care about DRM? I’d suggest no, but it’s good that us techies are opening things up for the normal consumer.

Five "points" will equal a free song but they didn’t share any details on the number of cans for a "point". FYI, this is Pepsi’s largest campaign ever and will launch at the Super Bowl on February 3.

Pepsi has announced that starting next month they will begin to release a new global branding campaign and a focus on the online space. I have always believed that even if you are not #1 in sales in a given category or market, there is no reason you can't lead the online space. I have seen this time and again in my 12+ years in the online business.

Let's take a look at some comments from the release:

The first, most visible piece of this effort will be new package graphics for Pepsi-Cola that change every few weeks to reflect themes close to the hearts of teens and young adults, such as sports, music, fashion and cars.

Could a social network (purchase, partnership or creation) be far behind?

Not only will the packages look different, but they'll be different. Pepsi bottles, cans and cups will give consumers access to exclusive online content, games, contests and sweepstakes through unique web addresses on each of the designs.

For the last 9 years I have continued to say that the package is the best asset a company has. Get people from the package to the online space and you can really build that 360 marketing and consumer channel and ultimately build loyalty.

Cie Nicholson, senior vice president and chief marketing officer of Pepsi-Cola North America said, "On the surface, this might look like a packaging update, but it's much more than that. We're changing the way we interact with consumers — and now we're doing it on their terms. When people pick up a Pepsi, they'll be getting much more than a great tasting cola. They'll be getting a passport to the things they enjoy most."

It will be exciting to see the directions that more companies like Pepsi move as they realize that having a flashy Web site is not as meaningful as actually connecting with their consumers in the methods that the consumer wants. Whether its email, online, direct mail, mobile, social networking, etc. The ones that embrace the right combination for their consumers are the ones that will win online and, ultimately, online.