February 6, 2004

the great Pepsi hunt of 2004

By now, you probably know that Apple and Pepsi are giving away 100 million iTunes downloads. However, Giles was quick to point out that the yellow-capped Pepsi bottles seem to be few and far between. I wonder how long it takes 300 million Pepsi bottles to infiltrate the market?

The only place that I have seen the contest bottles are at convenience stores. And, interestingly enough, only on Diet Pepsis... not regular Pepsis, caffeine-free Pepsis, Sierra Mists, or any other allegedly eligible Pepsi product. A quick trip to Harris Teeter this morning produced zero contest Pepsis, but did end up producing two six-packs of Diet Caffeine-Free Cokes. (Hey... they were buy one, get one free! How can you pass that up!?!) The yellow contest-caps are only available on two liter bottles and 20 oz. bottles. No cans, no half-liters. At the grocery store, all of the plastic-bottled six-packs that you can purchase from Coke and Pepsi are half-liters. I don't know if that's a regional thing, if it's just our bottler, or if it's part of a vast, Mac-wing conspiracy that prevents you from purchasing the iTunes contest caps in multi-packs. It stands to reason that Pepsi would only want to give away downloads on high-margin, single purchase items.

I did locate a yellow-capped one on the way back to the office and yes, I have won my first free iTunes download. That makes me one for two (and explains the graphic attached to this post,) having purchased a yellow-capped Diet Pepsi a day or two after the Super Bowl. I wonder how long before batches of these winning caps turn up on ebay. At fifty cents a cap, you could make quite a little cash rebate on your caps... if you drink a ton of Pepsi.

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