Pepsi uses RIAA victim in ad
Pepsi ads wink at music downloading
‘Wink’ at downloading?
That’s the headline in a USA TODAY story pumping up Pepsi’s coming iTunes music store promo.
“Some 20 teens sued by the Recording Industry Association of America, which accuses them of unauthorized downloads, will appear in a Pepsi-Cola (PEP) ad that kicks off a two-month offer of up to 100 million free – and legal -downloads from Apple’s iTunes, the leading online music seller,” says the story here.
The “sassy ad” [no kidding - it's a direct quote] due out on February 1 during Superbowl, “is a wink at the download hot button,” says Theresa Howard in a piece which might have come straight from Pepsi’s promo department.
“Pepsi hopes the promotion will connect its flagship cola, as well as Sierra Mist and Diet Pepsi, with teens who’ve shown more affinity for bottled water, energy drinks and the Internet,” she says.
The ‘wink’ comes in because Annie Leith, 14, has been suckered into appearing in the ad with other downloaders and apparently says she no longer makes “unauthorized downloads” and, “can say I was on TV for something so ridiculous”. With her older sister and younger brother, she downloaded 950 songs over three years, says the story, going on:
“They settled the lawsuit for $3,000, the average according to RIAA. She’ll use some of her undisclosed ad fee to help pay for the settlement.”
‘Settled’ means they paid the RIAA $3,000 rather than getting hauled into a court hearing which might have cost them thousands of dollars more.
In the meanwhile, Green Day “cut a special version of the 1966 Bobby Fuller Four hit I Fought the Law for the ad, by BBDO, New York,” says USA TODAY. “In the ad, Leith holds a Pepsi and proclaims: ‘We are still going to download music for free off the Internet.’ Then the announcer says how: ‘Announcing the Pepsi iTunes Giveaway’.”
“It’s all in good spirit,” Dave Burwick, chief marketer, Pepsi, North America, is quoted as saying.
Pepsi even managed to wheel out the RIAA’s seldom-seen boss Mitch Bainwol.
“This ad shows how everything has changed,” Bainwol says. “Legal downloading is great because fans are supporting the future of creative work in America.”
How low can you go?
Ask Pepsi.
January 23rd, 2004 at 9:51 pm
I just threw up.
January 30th, 2004 at 5:32 pm
If God had meant for us to drink Pepsi he wouldn’t have created Coca Cola….
January 31st, 2004 at 2:23 am
What do you expect from a company whose advertising schemes included painting grafitti on the Himalayas? Oh, wait, Coke did that too!
(I bet you think this is a joke.)
February 1st, 2004 at 9:43 pm
We will add Pepsi and Apple to the Boycott list. Their products suck anyway
February 5th, 2004 at 12:39 am
When I first saw it, I thought the commercial was meant to be a hard slam against the RIAA in order to make Pepsi seem cool and edgy.
When the girl said her line, it seemed to me like she was saying that kids would still use P2P to rip off music for free in spite of getting nailed by the RIAA. (At that point, we were laughing too much to pay attention to the end of the commercial where they explained the iTunes thing, and so I didn’t make the mental connection right away that iTunes = RIAA.)
Later, I was surprised to learn that the commercial had the blessing of the RIAA. It makes sense now that I think about it.
But I’ll bet a lot of people were like me and only remembered her funny line and how much it slams the RIAA. If that’s true, then the commercial may have seriously backfired against the RIAA.
October 10th, 2004 at 5:40 am
I don’t care if I’m months behind with this reply (this being October 2004), but yeah, I thought it was a definite “kick in the b*lls” to the RIAA.
Again, I didn’t make the connection either.
December 3rd, 2005 at 12:56 am
How is Annie Leith a victim?