Amazon and Pepsi are expected to finally announce their 11-month long promotion in which Pepsi customers can build up points by registering codes on bottle-caps and exchange them for merchandise and downloads from Amazon.com, sources say.
The promotion, which will run early February through the end of the year, is expected to launch with a commercial during the Superbowl.
Sources say that three of the majors-the Warner Music Group, EMI Music and
Sony BMG Music Entertainment-are among the music and video labels participating in the promotion. Amazon’s paying 40 cents to the labels for each redeemed download.
While Warner and EMI are already selling music in MP3s-the only digital format used by the Amazon store, the promotion will mark the debut of Sony BMG in a broad MP3 rollout. Earlier this week, the company announced that it was offering MP3 digital album download gift cards.
Meanwhile, the Universal Music Group, which also sells music in MP3s at Amazon, is sitting out the promotion, sources say.
The promotion, which will have codes on the inside of either 4 billion or 5 billion bottle caps, will see Pepsi customers registering codes at PepsiStuff.com to accumulate points, which can be exchanged for prizes. In addition to music downloads, the points can be exchanged for TV downloads, electronics, apparel, CDs and DVDs. Also, participants are entered into sweepstake to attend high profile events like the Superbowl and all-star games. Amazon and Pepsi executives were unavailable to comment. The four major labels either decline comment or were unavailable.
The promotion is expected to serve as the official launch of Amazon’s MP3 store, which had a soft opening in September.
