Dr Pepper’s offer to give everyone in the U.S. a free soda if Guns N’ Roses’ much-delayed album “Chinese Democracy” came out in 2008 has turned out to be not exactly what the Doctor ordered.
First the promotion— a 24-hour window on Sunday Nov. 23 in which fans could go to a Web site and sign up to receive a coupon redeemable for a 20-ounce Dr Pepper—misfired when the site’s server crashed under the traffic and a toll-free number proved unable to pick up the load. That led Dr Pepper to extend the online coupon offer until 6 p.m. EST on Monday Nov. 24.
Now a lawyer for both GNR and front man Axl Rose has written to Larry Young, president and CEO of Dr Pepper Snapple Group, parent to the Dr Pepper brand, calling the coupon promotion an “unmitigated disaster.”
According to press reports, Alan Gutman, a Beverly Hills attorney, used the letter sent to young last Tuesday to call the promotion “a complete fiasco.”
“The redemption scheme your company clumsily implemented for this offer was an unmitigated disaster which defrauded consumers and, in the eyes of vocal fans, ‘ruined’ the day of ‘Chinese Democracy’s release,” Gutman wrote. “Now it’s time to clean up the mess.”
“As we all know, Dr Pepper created an expansive and highly-publicized advertising campaign based solely on the exploitation of my clients’ legendary reputation,” he continued. ‘In and of itself, this campaign brazenly violated our clients’ rights in numerous respects. Unfortunately, Dr Pepper has not magnified the damage this campaign has caused throu7gh its appalling failure to make good on a promise it made to the American public.”
Gutman says the band wants Dr Pepper Snapple Group to issue a public apology for the campaign stumbles with full-page ads in notable national newspapers and to further extend the period in which users can register for their free soda coupon.
Frustration at failing to complete those Web registrations led many online fans of both GNR and Dr Pepper to accuse the soda maker of trying to welsh on its free drink promise. A good number of those also took the opportunity to complain that they had not understood the coupons would be distributed by mail and might take up to eight weeks to arrive.
Gutman’s letter also noted that Dr Pepper had not approached the band or Geffen Records, its publisher, about linking to the “Chinese Democracy” release and hinted at a lawsuit over trademark or copyright infringement.
“Had you wished to engage in a commercial tie-in with our clients, you should have negotiated a legitimate arrangement instead of hijacking their rights without payment,” it said. “Rest assured, this misappropriation will not be free.”
Interestingly, when Dr Pepper first made its free soda offer public in March 2008, Axl Rose issued a statement expressing pleasured at the move.
“We are surprised and very happy to have the support of Dr Pepper with our album “Chinese Democracy,” as for us, this came totally out of the blue,” Rose said back then. “If there is any involvement with this promotion by our record company or others, we are unaware of such at this time. And as some of [former GNR guitarist] Buckethead’s performances are on our album, I’ll share my Dr Pepper with him.”
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