Guess Pepsi and iPod just don't learn

[Gwarsbane]

http://p2pnet.net/story/4021

p2pnet.net News:- Does this look vaguely familiar – like maybe it's the pic from MacMerc’s Apple slash Pepsi feature dating back to the Sleeze Bowl of 2004?


You remember it – Apple, Pepsi and the Big Music cartel’s RIAA came up with a "cheeky spot,” as New York Times business writer Stuart Elliott called the commercial where 16 teenaged RIAA victims were ridiculed as file-sharing criminals in an iPod / iTunes promo.

Anway, Part II involved bottles of Pepsi with validation codes printed under the caps. These secret numbers enabled the 'lucky winners' to get free tracks from iTunes. At rip-off $1 a download, it's worth going for a freebie. The trouble - from Apple's viewpoint - was, all you had to do was tilt the bottles back at a 25-degree angle and read the codes off, as MacMerc quickly figured out.

The promo was a dismal failure and meant Steve Job's dowloads forecast for the year was way off, but Apple is having another shot at it this year.

Need we say more? Didn't think so.

Last year, "we let the world know that instead of buying just any iTunes Pepsi (and hoping for a winning bottle), a simple twist of the wrist and a watchful eye could reveal if a bottle had music in its future," says MacMerc. "We received many media accolades over the piece, but also buckets of hate mail, which just goes to show how seriously some people take this stuff.

"So why am I using this space to tell you a year old story?

"The trick works for the new contest."

Stay tuned.