Pepsi is bringing back their great MP3 giveaway, beginning on Super Bowl Sunday, 2008. But this time, Pepsi will be giving away one billion MP3’s in cooperation with… wait for it… Amazon.com.
Pepsi will be including download codes into five billion bottles of cola, but you’ll need to collect five codes to get a free MP3, ruling out the chance for non-Pepsi drinkers to buy one bottle and win an MP3 song. No, this time Pepsi is attempting to make sure the public gives its product a solid try, in hopes that many Coke drinkers will switch over (good luck with that).
But the most interesting thing about the new MP3 giveaway is Pepsi’s arrangement with Amazon.com’s new MP3 store. The new Amazon MP3 outlet beats the tar out of iTunes in several different ways. First, Amazon does not use digital rights management, which limits the user’s ability to copy an MP3, or use it on a different computer or MP3 player. Secondly, both Amazon MP3 singles and full albums are (slightly) cheaper on average than you’ll find on iTunes.
And perhaps most importantly, Amazon MP3’s are presented as just that — MP3’s, meaning that you can play them back on any standard computer media Center, or in pretty much any portable MP3 player on the market. In contrast, iTunes songs are downloaded in a proprietary format that is NOT compatible with Windows Media Player, for example, and most other portable MP3 players.
While it seems clear that the Amazon MP3 store is a superior service to iTunes, so far Amazon.com has not succeeded in getting the word out amongst music fans. ITunes name recognition, for example, is still much greater than the new Amazon MP3 store. In fact, many people haven’t realized that Amazon is offering the service.
But the new Pepsi/Amazon MP3 giveaway is bound to change all that. The new deal with Pepsi to sponsor their one billion MP3 giveaway will attract lots of new attention to the fledgling Amazon MP3 store, and more than likely convert many iTunes users over to the simpler, cheaper, and more flexible Amazon service.
The visibility that Amazon.com’s MP3 division will get from the new Pepsi promotion should be considerable, especially when you factor in the huge marketing push that advertising over the Super Bowl weekend will bring.
The biggest winners in the new Pepsi/Amazon giveaway will be consumers. Many people will discover the Amazon MP3 service for the first time via the promotion, and that’s probably just about all it will take to switch over many former iTunes fans.
The biggest loser in this new promotion is, of course, iTunes. But with Amazon nipping at their heels, Apple may finally be forced to drop many of the limiting aspects of the iTunes service, including the digital rights management and nonstandard music files. Who would’ve thought we’d have Pepsi to thank for that?
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