At first blush, the announcement that Pepsi and the NFL have launched what both parties are calling a “breakthrough” collaboration to create original team anthems didn’t seem all that significant. But then I thought about what this could mean for the 20-minute slice of time between the second and third quarter of the Super Bowl.
With Pepsi once again sponsoring the Super Bowl halftime show and with Pepsi and the NFL showing a strong inclination to make their brands inseparable via the availability of original songs that can be obtained by purchasing Pepsi products, it’s reasonable to wonder whether the future halftime acts will come from the universe of acts associated with Pepsi and not, say, Coke.
The first wave of team anthems come from Kid Rock (Lions), Kelly Clarkson (Cowboys), Ice Cube (Raiders), Travie McCoy (Giants), and Wiz Khalifa (Steelers). (For those of you who are as out of touch as me, the person photographed is Wiz Khalifa and not, say, Kelly Clarkson.)
For now, it makes sense to keep an eye on this new partnership -- and on whether and to what extent the money Pepsi is paying to the NFL will give Pepsi direct input in the always-intriguing question of who will get the extremely lucrative privilege of performing for the biggest audience generated by American sports.
