In 2004, Apple and Pepsi joined together to give users free songs on Apple Music during the Super Bowl. The idea was to give users one song with every bottle of Pepsi bought, ultimately giving away one hundred million songs by the end of the campaign.
It didn't work. Pepsi struggled with demand for the bottles, and people were able to nab bottle caps with free songs on them without actually buying the drinks.
Now, however, Apple and Pepsi look to put things right, with a new ad campaign that's going to give Pepsi customers free subscriptions to Apple Music, with QR codes on 20oz bottles of Pepsi.
Better luck this time?
As noted by AdAge (Via MacRumors), there will be 400 million bottles made available by the fizzy drinks giant, with "Pepsi, Pepsi Zero Sugar, Pepsi Mango, Pepsi Wild Cherry, Mountain Dew, Mountain Dew Major Melon, Mountain Dew Spark, Mountain Dew Voltage, Starry, and Starry Zero Sugar" flavors all available with codes. The QR codes, available from today, can be entered from May 2023, and more information can be found on the Press Play on Summer site.
Those codes will net you 3 free months of Apple Music, something that would normally cost you around $33 with a paid subscription. It's not just free subs, either – there will be trips to Apple Music events, and even Beats headphones up for grabs.
The whole thing will be widely advertised over the summer, with rapper Bad Bunny at the helm.
Apple Music is obviously hoping that this will bring more users to its platform, in some effort to catch up with the faltering giant that is Spotify. In recent months Apple Music has started to look more tempting than Spotify, after a horrible new app experience and news around the new HiFi streaming once again being delayed.
400 million is a lot of potential new customers, so maybe this could be where Apple Music finds more of a footing in the streaming space. After all, you can offer all the extras you want, but no one will know they need them until they try them out.
