2023 Silver Voice or Audio

Agency: WPP Open X and Universal Music Group

Client: Sprite

Entry Title: Sprite Limelight

Executive Summary

Sprite’s brand purpose is to ‘keep the world cool, one Sprite at a time’. Having lost its brand edge and relevance in GenZ lives, the brand wanted to build long-term relationships based on how the drink can help them cool down in the face of physical and mental heat.

Strategy

We all have moments of physical and mental heat that stop us from being at our best - GenZ more than most. 98% are dealing with symptoms of burnout, they’re saving significantly less money; more than half have a side hustle to cope. And 73% claim they need more self-expression to live a happy healthy life.

Sprite’s role as a brand is to be the wingman of GenZ, providing a cool-down moment when heat happens. The Sprite Limelight campaign used the passion point of music as a way to provide it, allowing them to disconnect and stay cool.

The work brought the brand’s purpose together with a unique global music experiment, connecting fans across cultures and borders with their favourite artists - helping them alter their mood and bringing them closer to talent they love.

Creativity

Sprite Limelight highlighted how on-the-rise artists take on the heat in their lives through creativity and self-expression.

In a global experiment, iconic Grammy-winning producer James Blake created a central music hook. Then four cutting-edge artists recorded their own personal songs about the heat they face.

The tracks were anchored by the unique and unmistakable hook that served as the connective tissue throughout all variations; translatable in style, genre and local language. Each artist represented a different genre. The programme trailer featuring James Blake was released ahead of a four-part episodic series, staggered globally.

A 360-degree roll-out strategy actively engaged fans, from user-generated content to festival activations. A unique visual identity was developed which informed all assets from single release cover artwork to playlist visuals and artist photography treatment. Each artist featured in a Heat Confessional video, where they described tackling heated moments in their lives, plus a music film teaser, trailer, and hero music video, followed by a wrap film.

The songs were released and promoted on streaming platforms such as Spotify, along with curated artist playlists. Music festival artist performances and activations included Rolling Loud in the US, Strawberry in China and Afro Nation in Africa.

Results

The campaign proved that delivering value to consumers through their passion points, in an authentic way that aligns to a brand platform and purpose, has the greatest impact.

It saw high reach and 8.71% engagement rate, with 15,824,633 shares/retweets and 2,801,304 comments.

There were also 8.8 billion PR impressions globally across the marketing and music industry trade press in particular: 76 titles in North America, 187 in China, 54 in LATAM and 29 in Africa.

Consideration increased 73% after seeing Limelight. In post-campaign research:

• 89% felt Sprite Limelight was ‘relevant to me and my generation’
• 82% said it improved their sentiment about Sprite
• 68% felt more positive about the brand having seen the activation