By Ina Fried, 29 April 2004 08:55
NEWS Apple said on Wednesday that about 5 million free songs have been given away through a Pepsi promotion, far fewer than the 100 million tracks that could have been redeemed.
An Apple representative said the music giveaway was probably the biggest ever of its kind but admitted that the company gave away fewer songs than it had intended.
"We had hoped the redemptions would have been higher," said Katie Cotton, Apple's vice president of worldwide corporate communications. Customers with winning bottle caps have until Friday to redeem their free music tracks.
Cotton noted that the yellow-capped bottles with the Apple song codes were late in reaching some key markets. However, Cotton said the promotion did introduce a lot of people to iTunes.
The 5 million free tracks Pepsi gave away were included as part of Apple's statement earlier Wednesday that it has sold 70 million songs in the first year of its music service. Apple said last fall that it hoped to distribute 100 million tracks in its first year, but when that figure was calculated, it was expected that more winning bottle caps would be redeemed.
Customers who wanted the codes did find a way of boosting their odds, which were supposed to be one in three for getting a free song. Fans discovered that by tilting the bottle at a certain angle, they could tell whether the bottle was a winner.
Overall, Apple CEO Steve Jobs said Wednesday that he was pleased with the rate at which Apple's music store is growing.
"We feel we have a lot of momentum," Jobs said on a conference call, noting that the company is now selling music at a rate of 2.7 million songs per week, or 140 million songs per year. That's up slightly from the rate Jobs touted in March, when the company had sold 50 million tracks.
Besides the Pepsi deal, there is also a smaller giveaway going on this week in conjunction with Ben & Jerry's. The ice cream maker is offering 50,000 free tracks - one to each customer who pledges this week to vote in the presidential election.
Apple has also launched its own giveaway, offering a free track each day this week and then, in the future, one free track per week. Cotton said that promotion is being done with the participation of the record companies, but she declined to discuss financial details.
Analysts praised that move, saying the promotion should help build awareness and draw in new customers.
"Whenever anyone offers something free, your ears perk up," said Technology Business Research analyst Tim Deal.
Ina Fried writes for CNET News.com
Comments
There are 10 comments. Join the discussion
1. Rory Choudhuri
OK, I hope this is read by the same editor who responded to my comment on Ren?arayol's article.
Here's another example of why I think your coverage is anti-Apple.
There were a slew of iTunes related announcements yesterday. Yet your headline is a totally negative "iTunes loses 95 milllions songs".
(Ed note. Honestly Rory, get over it. We are not anti-Apple, we are a news service and as such we have to take a judgement call on what is the strongest angle and headline. We are confident most of our readers are intelligent enough to make up their own minds about the facts in the story, our job is to make sure they read it in the first place and we believe we went with the strongest, most interesting angle. Even you read it despite your apparent issues with our coverage so it must have worked.)
Never mind that they sold 70 million in the last year alone, have 50 odd percent marketshare for the iPod and 70 percent for legally downloaded music, have changed the music purchasing paradigm, have a runaway success with the iPod mini, etc. etc. All you can focus on is to blame Apple for some pretty shoddy execution by Pepsi. And spin the news so that it looks as if Apple are unsuccessful yet again.
BTW, I take your point about having chosen Steve Jobs as top of your agenda setters list.
2. William Hoyt
The promotion is failure in the sense that so few songs were redeemed but it was a success in getting iTunes out there and more widely known. I would be curious to know how many of the Pepsi bottles were sold with the promotional caps, without that knowledge it isn't possible to know what percentage of the possible winners were actually redeemed. Pepsi has to sell their sugar water before anybody can get the free download. Presumably Pepsi would have to sell 300 million 20oz bottles of Pepsi and slurpees during the contest period to get 100 million winners out there. My guess is that Pepsi (and 7-11) fell well short of that.
3. Lou Metts
So if you want a sensationalist headline to attract readers, why not "Apple Fails To Sell Music to 4 Billion People"? "Steve Jobs Does Not Deny Link Between iTunes and Iraqi WMDs"? Responsible journalism means presenting the most accurate and most meaningful view of a story, not just the most attention-grabbing. This article was more like tabloid journalism.
4. Shawn King
"(Ed note. Honestly Rory, get over it. We are not anti-Apple, we are a news service and as such we have to take a judgement call on what is the strongest angle and headline."
I find it hard to believe you would think that headline, given the content of the article, which says *nothing* about Apple "losing 95 million songs", constituted your "strongest angle".
Unless by "strongest" you mean, "most misleading and inflammatory".
"Even you read it despite your apparent issues with our coverage so it must have worked."
Yes, yellow journalism often works. That doesn't mean it's good journalism.
How you could possibly believe misrepresenting the facts doesn't do a disservice to your organization and your readership is beyond me.
Apple did not "lose" 95 million songs. Those songs were never given out. Nothing was lost.
The facts of the matter are strong enough (it certainly is embarrassing to Apple and Pepsi that they only redeemed 5 million songs and that the blame lies at Pepsi's door) to hang a story on and even to hang a good headline on but for your organization to title your article in such an obvious misleading way is offensive to journalists every where.
I think you owe you readership an aplogy.
5. Curious George
I was looking forward to getting some free music out of this deal, but Pepsi fell on its face with distribution. In my neck of the woods, I couldn't find any iTunes bottles until about two weeks before the promotion ended. I was able to download 10 songs. But the thing was supposed to run for two months, and I saw bottles for two weeks.
No wonder Pepsi missed their mark! And yeah that's Pepsi...it was their promotion, not Apple's.
6. anonymous
He's right. Focusing on the negative, given the positives in this instance, are a little like headlining a speech by President Bush with a comment about his socks. I use both platforms, but the jump to slant the story negatively when it's not smacks of bias.
7. anonymous
Call the Pepsi promotion what it was - a fraud!
I shopped at three different supermarkets and two convenience stores and never saw one single pepsi that was in the so called giveaway program. What a sham!
Apple lowered themselves to participate in this and then to have it be only 5% of what it was claimed to be just puts the cap on the bottle so to speak. Aren't there federal laws about this type of thing?
8. anonymous
I have to say this falls completely upon Pepsi for screwing this up. I have been looking for the yellow caps ever since it was first announced. I have yet to see one anywhere in this city, or the others I have went to during that time!!! My brother got one, but besides that I haven't seen a one, let alone a winning one!! The cities I am talking about contain approximately 14 million people combined, a very good market share with one of the cities being in the top 3 market places in the USA!
You can't blame Apple for Pepsi not shipping the bottles. Pepsi, you screwed up on this one.
Also, I must agree with some of the other posts that this is journalism gone wrong. Please try to be more responsible when thinking up headlines for articles before commiting them to the mass audiences.
9. joe
it does not matter to me what kind of promo any music download service offers because I have my collection of 3500 songs which Ive downloaded for free over the past 5 years. I will never pay for music in my lifetime. Sorry
10. anonymous
Not many redeemed? Hmmmm.. Funny. I've been keeping track of winners AFTER the April 30th deadline and I've hit 9 in 10 as winners. What is the probability in that? Well, might be ggod if you hold back all the winning bottles until the deadline passes. hmmmm...