Key Bank / iPod Nano Marketing Campaign - Was it worth it?

In the Seattle Metro area and perhaps elsewhere as well, Key Bank was running a marketing campaign: Sign up for a checking account, meet a few basic requirements, and get a free iPod Nano.

The campaign was mostly advertised on billboards, or at least that's all I saw of it. I had seen them before but never did anything further to really see what was involved with satisfying the requirements. The billboard ads went away, but soon came back, so I decided to look into it.

The requirements:

1. Open a Key Bank Checking account (their basic was one was sufficient)
2. Fund the account
   
3. Get a debit card (free) and use it at least once in a debit (non-ATM) transaction
4. Make two merchant-initiated* bill payments of $100 or more each
   

These things had to be completed by a certain date as well.

* Merchant-initiated are the kind that you sign up for on the merchant or biller's web site by providing your routing & checking account number so that they can pull the funds out of your account. Doing regular bill-payments from the checking account are different and wouldn't meet the requirements.

So, I funded the account with $300 (or thereabouts), enough to cover the two payments and the debit card transaction, made a purchase, and setup two payments within the time frame required.

I even received a nice and quick call from a local Key Bank branch asking if I had any questions about meeting the promotion requirements.

It took 6-8 weeks (as advertised) to get my iPod, but it just arrived today. The FedEx guy asked what they were all about -- he said he had tons of them to deliver, so apparently Key Bank shipped them all out at once. Anyhow, the iPod was actually the new slender 8gb model (with rotation, shake support, & Genius), not the previous and more-squarish 4gb model they were advertising at the time. Key Bank included a little note to remind me that they had given me the newer version.

So anyhow, the business part of me is wondering what Key Bank is getting out of this -- and for that matter, what Apple is getting out of it. It wouldn't surprise me to find out that Apple put up money for this campaign either through direct funds or by providing the iPods to Key Bank at a very low wholesale cost. Did this promotion help Key Bank or Apple more?

Either way, let's do some quick math:

The average retail price for the new 8gb iPod Nano is $149 at the Apple Store (slightly lower average of about $132 elsewhere online). Let's say Key Bank got a killer deal on them at $40 each. How much money does each recipient of this promotion need to generate Key Bank to make it worthwhile?

They must be hoping that they can make money by leveraging my funds, perhaps sell me a mortgage or other financial product, and/or that I tell my friends how great Key Bank is so they all sign up too.

I don't know -- it just doesn't add up. Anyone with mad banking industry and marketing skills want to provide some insight?

All in all, I'm happy with my FIRST iPod and first-ever purchased Apple product (other Apple products I own: an old Power Mac G3 and a iMac for software testing purposes).

PS -- the packaging and presentation was wonderful as expected, unlike the Microsoft Office 2007 experience in my previous post! Although the casing was not completely obvious, they were smart enough to put clear little stickers and diagrams to show what to do.