I read recently about the latest development in the Guns 'n' Roses / Dr Pepper marketing event, which is the best piece of marketing I've seen this year. I wrote about it previously here. Basically Dr Pepper said they would give out a can of Dr Pepper to every American (except Slash and Buckethead) if Chinese Democracy (their new album) was released this year.
A release date has been announced - November 23rd and Dr Pepper have confirmed they will be honoring their statement of Dr Pepper for everyone in the U.S. of A. You can go to a website, register and get sent a can. Simple.
It actually only occurred to me today how clever this whole idea was (sorry I'm a bit slow). They couldn't loose. By making the initial announcement they show themselves to be 'into music' but not through to some lame 'collect 10 labels' campaign. Connected through an actual insider element of music that had people talking.
So back to the promise. At most they'll give away 300 million cans. But how many Americans will actually go on the site? 10%, 5%? I think 2% would be amazing and that would be 6 million people drinking Dr Pepper! They shift around 730 million cases of Dr Pepper (inc diet) each year. 6 million cans is only 250 000 cases. A lot of this extra spend could be cut from their sampling budget which is what they're actually doing here anyway. And then think of all the addresses they are collecting of people who have requested a can of Dr Pepper. Oh my God, that's a seriously good mailing list! How much money is that worth?!
And then think of the number of column inches they got when they started this 'campaign' in the music press as well as general press. And then again a huge amount at the end of the year when G'n'R don't release the album or even more inches if they do release it. A double win. And no advertising spend (to my knowledge). Amazing.
Possibly the best bit of band wagon jumping I've ever seen. 10 points.