Pepsi’s Monster Breaks “Stuff” in Times Square

Pepsi took the unusual step of kicking off its “Pepsi Stuff” Super Bowl campaign Monday, almost two weeks before the big game, by sending a 60-foot inflatable robot monster rampaging around New York City before coming to rest in Times Square.

The alien life form is intended to represent the scope of the Pepsi Stuff music giveaway program that will launch with a commercial during the Super Bowl on Feb. 3. Pepsi’s fifth Bowl-related giveaway is also reportedly its largest; the company expects to hand out 3.25 million songs from some 270,000 artists. The songs come without digital rights management restrictions via Amazon’s new Amazon MP3 service, so they can be played and shared without difficulty.

The New York “Pepsi Stuff Monster” campaign began with street teams laying down the monster’s “tracks” as it trudged menacingly through high-traffic areas such as Penn Station, leaving behind large robot footprints and piles of giveaway merchandise.

“This ‘debris’ was then handled by clean-up crews in overalls and hard hats, and they cleaned it up by giving it away,” says Patrick West, vice president for experiential marketing at Zoom Media and marketing, which executed the promotion. “We had security and police tape, but frankly, I’ve never seen New Yorkers line up more peacefully.”

The giveaways, both at the street sites and around the Stuff Monster’s resting place in Times Square, included CDs, DVDs, hats, shirts and belt buckles. But the largest portion of the merchandise handed out were envelopes containing access codes for music downloads at the PepsiStuff.com Web site (http://www.pepsistuff.com). The Web site goes live in eight days.

West said the thinking behind starting the Pepsi Stuff campaign before the Super Bowl was that the promotion is much larger than any single event. “We wanted to convey that this campaign isn’t contained by a Super Bowl commercial,” he said. “Also, the intent was to start some buzz in the pre-game period.”
Pepsi announced on Jan. 14 that it was partnering with Amazon MP3 for the promotion. The company will also send 4 billion specially marked Pepsi containers to retail stores. Consumers can use these containers to collect points and redeem them for music.

Last night, the Stuff Monster headed off to Glendale AZ, where it will form part of the Super Bowl Week entertainment set up around the University of Phoenix Stadium from now until game time.

An animated version of the Pepsi Stuff Monster will appear in a Pepsi TV spot launching some time after the Super Bowl. In the commercial, the monster will show up anywhere people are drinking Pepsi to hand out free music and gear.

During the big game, Pepsi will rely on a Justin Timberlake TV spot to promote its Stuff giveaway.