MusicMatch & Coca-Cola Bravely Go Where Apple/Pepsi Already Went

by , 3:15 PM EST, January 29th, 2004

Coca-Cola and MusicMatch have announced a joint promotion of the latter's online music service, similar to the deal announced by Apple and Pepsi at Macworld San Francisco. As with the Apple/Pepsi deal, Coca-Cola will be promoting the MusicMatch music store through its line of soft drinks, specifically the Sprite brand. From a Reuters report:

Coca-Cola said on Wednesday it has teamed up with online music company MusicMatch Inc. to promote its Sprite brand, marking the latest alliance between a major beverage maker and an online music service.

Specific details are expected to be unveiled in the coming months, but the deal's announcement comes just days before Coke's rival, PepsiCo Inc. and Apple Computer Inc's iTunes Music Store kick off a promotion to give away up to 100 million song downloads.

"As much as anything else, these campaigns raise consumer awareness of the legitimate music sites, and obviously the drink manufacturers are looking for ways to generate sales," said Mike McGuire, an analyst with GartnerG2.

The Coca-Cola partnership will link privately held MusicMatch, the software company known for its popular music player, with millions of Sprite drinkers, the companies said.

There's more information in the full article at Yahoo!'s Web site.

The Mac Observer Spin:

It's no surprise, of course, that other companies are copying Apple's ad campaign, but we wonder if MusicMatch didn't score the better deal. Coke is the market leader in the soft drink business, but then again, Pepsi sales dwarf sales of Sprite, so perhaps Coke's monster marketing power will not be as much of an advantage as it could have been.

That said, we have little doubt that the iTunes/Pepsi campaign will be the far more successful of the two.

Reuters Article