Madonna’s divorce from Sean Penn was finalized on January 25, 1989, the same day Pepsi announced an unprecedented agreement with her. She would release her new single, “Like a Prayer,” during a Pepsi commercial in exchange for $5 million and Pepsi’s sponsorship of her next tour. The ad marked the first time a record would premiere in a commercial and the first time a TV commercial would be given a global launch. Pepsi said it would be seen in forty countries — or “just about every TV set on the planet Earth”— with an estimated viewership of 250 million people. Madonna’s manager Freddy DeMann called the marketing campaign around the record and the commercial the “pop-world equivalent” of a new Star Wars film.
Full article at VanityFair
