I think we're probably in violent agreement with each other 🙂
I don't think that NFC is the future - see my other posts on this.
I agree that SMS is the best CTA at the moment. Even a non expert scanner will be able to scan in a code faster than they can type in a URL (accurately).
Re Pepsi - it was a few years ago but I was talking to their mobile team, not the PR team, and they seemed fairly pleased with it. Compare it to an early days SMS campagain and I think it stacks up well. Were they to repeat the exercise this year, I think it would do great business for them.
Thanks for your comments - much appreciated.