McDonaldis Corp. (MCD) plans to give away up to 1 billion songs to customers after PepsiCo Inc. (PEP) announced a deal to give away 100 million downloads from Appleis iTunes music service, the New York Post said on Thursday.
Both the soft-drink maker and the fast-food company are paying Appleis (AAPL) retail price of 99 cents per song in their marketing campaigns, The Post reported, citing unnamed sources.
As with other fast-food prize giveaways, not every prize will be claimed but McDonaldis is still expected to spend hundreds of millions of dollars on the promotion.
UPDATE:
Shortly after Reuters reported the possible 1 Billion song promotion, a story at Yahoo! Finance was published with McDonaldis Corp. claiming the story is “pure speculation.” From the article:
McDonaldis issued a statement saying, “There are no agreements to announce, so anything else is pure speculation.”
[…]
McDonaldis statement said it “continues to aggressively pursue bold new initiatives in the areas of music, sports, fashion and entertainment to connect with our customers in fresh and relevant ways…You can expect news from McDonaldis on a variety of fronts in the coming weeks and months.”