In the 1970s, Dr Pepper had a jingle that said, “Be a Pepper, drink Dr Pepper.” Dr Pepper learned using music worked to see their product and tried this gimmick again using the rock band Guns N’ Roses.

This time, though, it didn’t work out so nicely. It developed into a marketing plan gone wrong, and consumers lost sight of the actual product to get excited about: Guns N’ Roses’ new album.

Dr Pepper created a marketing campaign in March claiming every person in America would receive a free Dr Pepper if Guns N’ Roses released it’s long-awaited album, Chinese Democracy, before the end of the year.

The wait for this album was going on 17 years, but the band came through and released the album Nov. 23.

After the long wait, fans were not only excited to finally listen to the new album, but also to redeem their free soda, or so they thought. Dr Pepper offered fans 24 hours to log onto their Web site and print the coupon for their free sweet drink.

“I can see why people are so excited for the new album, but not for a free Dr Pepper,” said freshman undecided major Nick Sander. “I don’t think I would go online and print out a coupon for a free pop. It’s just too much work.”

Dr Pepper was not expecting the high volume of people that visited their Web site for the coupon. The high amount of traffic to the Web site caused the server to crash, angering all the free pop fanatics and leading some of them to mistakenly blame Guns N’ Roses, not Dr Pepper, for the free soda mishap.

“When you go on the blogs and you read the responses from the fans, they associated Axl [Rose] with this promotion…and blame him for the fact that they didn’t get their free soda,” said the band’s lawyer Laurie Soriano in an interview with CNN. “We’ve gone public with the fact that we are not involved but are trying to clean up the mess.”

The disgruntled fans influenced Dr Pepper to extend this free pop deal from 24 hours to 42 hours and create a toll-free line to handle consumer requests for the coupons. The band is still waiting for its apology from Dr Pepper for not taking the blame for the soda confusion.

Looking at this example of marketing makes me wonder if all that drama was worth a free pop. What happened to drinking Dr Pepper because of its taste, or enjoying the music Guns N’ Roses makes just for the music it is? NaturalNews.com posted an article by Mike Adams in April 2006 saying the reason everything is sold with a rebate is because it creates a perception of a lower price without actually having to sell the product at the lowered price.

NaturalNews.com said the reason manufacturers offer rebates is because most people won’t apply for the rebates. Maybe a third of the people actually fill out the rebate form. Maybe Dr Pepper made the offer for the free soda only if you print off a coupon from the Internet because they figured people wouldn’t do it; just like how people don’t always get their rebate back.

“People just like free stuff,” said freshman sociology major Raquel Flores. “That’s why that Web site crashed so fast; it was a race to a free pop.”

It’s obvious Dr Pepper underestimated the want of their product for free.

“I am just surprised how many people went through all that trouble for the free Dr Pepper,” Flores said. “Then [they] blame the band. That doesn’t make sense.”

Whether a rebate is offered, 20 percent is taken off the total or they receive a free soda, consumers will always go for the deal. The fact Dr Pepper/Guns N’ Roses’ fans became angry at Guns N’ Roses for having trouble online with a free soda coupon is just plain dumb. In this case, the marketing tactics used to influence consumers affected a third party, Guns N’ Roses, in a negative way. There should be no give-away offered if takers cannot behave maturely.