Surprised this didn’t come out before: Pepsi tied up with Amazon.com (NSDQ: AMZN) for SuperBowl earlier this year, to give away 1 billion free MP3 songs though Amazon’s digital music service...this was a blow to Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) iTunes, as it had previously done a similar promotion for 100 million songs the year before for Pepsi. The new deal was supposed to give a big boost to Amazon.com’s DRM-free music service.
Now FT reports that the Amazon promo is not sitting well with the brick-and-mortar retailers like Wal-Mart (NYSE: WMT) and Target, and the promotion has received little attention in grocery aisles. The story says Amazon’s name has been banished from the front of Pepsi bottles carrying the promo, making it almost invisible in supermarket aisles. The same has happened with multi-pack cartons of cans, where Amazon’s logo is on the back, next to the product’s bar code and nutritional information.

Wal-Mart accounts for 18 per cent of North American sales of PepsiCo, and of course has its own music store. Not clear: if this was always supposed to be the case, or did pressure from the big retailers made Pepsi change its packaging on the promo, but the FT story certainly indicates so. 

• Amazon 1 Billion MP3 Giveaway Offer; Under Pressure, Labels Warm To DRM-free Format
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• Sony BMG Joining Amazon Music Store; Final Major To Try DRM-Free: Report