In 2004, Apple and Pepsi teamed up to do a program in which 100 million free downloads would be served up via Pepsi bottle tops.

The campaign was kicked off with a Super Bowl commercial in which kids who had been sued for  illegally downloading music drank Pepsi and proclaimed they'd still download over Green Day's version of "I fought the law."

Only about five million downloads were ever actually served. Possibly because it wasn't promoted well enough, or maybe because people don't really equate spending $1.35 for corn syrup and fizzy water with sticking it to the man.

Regardless, Pepsi is making a change with this year's free download campaign.

03 Dec 2007

The soda kingpin is going to be offering one billion downloads this year. But rather than serve the songs via iTunes, Pepsi is going to use the eyeball-hungry Amazon download service.

Perhaps Pepsi didn't want to deal with the computing diva that is iTunes and its terms. Or maybe Apple simply didn't feel the need to set up a repeat of a promotion that only ended up serving about 5% its target volume.

Either way, I'm sure Amazon will be happy to get the publicity for its music store.

The original 2004 commercial which heralded the rebellion of the consumer and the end of the RIAA's bully campaign against kids... or not.