So Where Are All The Pepsi-iTunes Promotional Bottles?

They are actually out there but you have to know where to look--really!

As most of you know, on February 1st the Pepsi Cola Co. began a promotion that offers a free Apple iTunes Music Store song download in one of every three specially-marked 20-oz and 1-liter plastic bottles of Pepsi, Diet Pepsi and Sierra Mist--100 million songs in total. The kickoff was a Super Bowl ad and the promotion was set to run through the months of February and March (see the details here).

We have a standing order in our family to bring home a 6-pack of the special bottles when located. In fact, there's a standing incentive of an all-expense paid trip to San Diego for the family member who brings home the first 6-pack. But in nearly two weeks after the Super Bowl kickoff, no one has scored even one bottle, much less a 6-pack.

Yesterday, Kent Wilmes wrote us asking if we knew what was going on because he hadn't found any of the promotional bottles in his suburb of Denver. That, along with our own dry spell, gave us the impetus to conduct a specific check of ten establishments in the immediate vicinity of Macs Only!'s global headquarters in Northern Virginia. We decided to check four supermarkets (two each of Safeway and Giant), four large drugstores (two each of CVS and Eckerd) and two 7-11's.

There were none in any of the four supermarkets. In fact, none of the supermarkets even carried the 20-oz Pepsi bottles. They had 1.05 liter (not 1-liter!) and 24-oz plastic bottles but no 20's. They also had larger 2-liter plastic bottles, 12-oz cans and smaller bottles of Pepsi, Diet Pepsi and Sierra Mist by the gillions. We did get faked out for a minute by another Pepsi promotion, "Caps for Caps", which also uses the same yellow cap on the 1.05-liter plastic bottles. One additional thing we noted was that the 2-liter bottles and the 24-oz bottles had special price promotions in all four supermarkets, 99 cents each for a 2-liter or a 24-oz (if buying 3) bottle .

We scored at the first 7-11 we visited. Their singles cooler houses 20-oz plastic bottles of just about every kind of soft drink. Sprinkled among the Pepsi and Diet Pepsi bottles were about a dozen of the yellow-capped iTunes promotional bottles. We fished out 6 and bought them for the outlandish price of $1.19 each. The ad for a free iTunes song chance with a humongous 32-oz cup of their fountain Pepsi was prominantly displayed but there were no specially-marked cups. The cashier said the cups hadn't arrived yet and didn't know when they would.

We had exactly the same experience at the other 7-11 and at all four drugstores, i.e. a few promotional bottles sprinkled in among the others at $1.19 each for a 20-oz bottle and no specially-marked promotional cups.

At $1.19 for a 20-oz bottle, that works out to nearly 6 cents per ounce for a free song if you get one, or with the one in three odds it's nearly 18 cents per ounce per song. Contrast that with the cheapest that we found Pepsi, 88 cents for a 2-liter bottle or 1.3 cents per ounce at an Eckerd drugstore, and you can begin to understand how Pepsi is paying in part for the promotion. With a slow start up and a sure end date plus the primary delivery method being high-priced singles via 7-11s and drugstores, at least so far, we wonder just how many of those 100 million songs will actually get redeemed.

The good news is that the first and second bottles we opened were winners! Still four to try. The bad news is that the code on one is partially unreadable and wouldn't work so we have to mail it in plus we paid over $7 for 6 bottles of Pepsi. We also scored the trip to San Diego but it's really not a vacation. You see, Macs Only!'s global headquarters will be transferring from Northern Virginia to our home town, San Diego, in late spring to early summer.

What's your experience? Let us know.

[Update 10a ET] Feral Released XIII for Mac Trailer Today: You see, it's Friday the 13th.... XIII is a new game being brought to the Mac by Feral Interactive and it has reached beta stage with a target release in April. Feral has also set up a special web site to preview the game with screenshots. The web site states in part "You have no recollection of who or what you are...only the knowledge that you are implicated in the assassination of the President of the U.S.A...and that people are out to kill you...and what does this "XIII" tatooed on your chest mean?"

[Update 8a ET] Tonight on The Mac Night Owl LIVE Show--Hard Drive Maintenance: This week, Gene Steinberg's The Mac Night Owl LIVE will feature a special hard drive maintenance clinic. His guests will include John Christopher of DriveSavers, Jeff Baudin of MicroMat and Greg Brewer of Prosoft. Tune into the broadcast from 6:00 to 8:00 PM Pacific, 9:00 to 11:00 PM Eastern.