Dear dear dear dear dear me. It all seemed such a lark, didn't it? Some bright spark at Dr Pepper promised to give everyone in the U.S a free can of their delicious beverage if Chinese Democracy saw the light of day in 2008.

Then, when the album was in fact released, Dr Pepper chose to make good on their promise through an online redemption scheme that saw their servers more or less EXPLODE from the demand.

Now Guns N' Roses' lawyer has brought the verbal smackdown, labelling the promotion "an unmitigated disaster which defrauded customers".

There's no talk of actual legal proceedings being brought by Axl Rose (yet), but his lawyer Alan Gutman has accused the brand of "a raw and damaging commercial exploitation of our clients' rights" and is demanding some suitable dollar$$$ as recompense.

All sounds a bit humourless, but you can kind of see where he's coming from. I imagine Dr Pepper didn't for a moment suppose - like the rest of the worldiverse - that Chinese Democracy would be released in 2008, which is why they went and said it. And then, whaddayaknow, Axl wakes up and pulls his finger out all of a sudden. Or, if you believe certain rumours, needs to get the album out of the way so he can reform the original line-up next year.

It seems pretty clear Dr Pepper weren't prepared for the reality of getting Dr Pepper to the whole of the country, but they got a hell of a lot of publicity out of the whole episode. And, if fans went to their site and couldn't get their free can of pop, the thinking goes that they will associate Guns N' Roses - who were never even involved in the promotion - with sad, boo-hoo, website-no-worky "experiences".

If you think all this chuntering on about image association sounds rather far-fetched, bear in mind that 50 Cent recently had a similar strop about Taco Bell's "cheeky" attempt to get him to change his name as part of a promotion for one of their special offers.

I suppose for brands willing to engage in such stunts in future it'll be a case of weighing up the publicity gained against the possible legal shitstorm that could follow.

[source: Billboard]