NBA participant Anthony Edwards and Olympic sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson drank Sprite within the Coca-Cola model’s most up-to-date “Obey Your Thirst” adverts, and the star athletes will not be alone: Sprite has now surpassed Pepsi to turn into the No. 3 carbonated comfortable drink by quantity within the U.S, per Beverage Digest information shared with Advertising and marketing Dive.
The gross sales milestone comes after an energetic yr of selling that noticed the model deliver again “Obey Your Thirst” 30 years after the unique marketing campaign helped set up the model’s individualist ethos. Launched final April, Sprite’s newest tackle the tagline got here amid a wave of nostalgia-washing, however the model’s success suggests its what-is-old-is-new-again effort related with customers.
“‘Obey Your Thirst’ wasn’t only a relaunch of a platform, however actually refreshing it for a brand new technology of customers. Transparently, most of Gen Z wasn’t conversant in ‘Obey Your Thirst,’ so it was very very similar to launching a brand new marketing campaign,” stated AP Chaney, senior inventive director of glowing flavors at Coca-Cola. “The resonance has been nice when it comes to the way it confirmed up and the way we’re infiltrating tradition.”
The choice to deliver again “Obey Your Thirst” speaks to how the platform’s essence — of being true to your self — resonates with Sprite’s core viewers, per analysis accomplished by the model. That’s very true amid a social-media-heavy interval that encourages social strain round conforming and appearing a sure means on-line.
“What our viewers needs to really feel is that it is okay to to be your self,” stated Josh Kroo, vp of glowing flavors in Coca-Cola’s North American working unit. “That authenticity is on the core of what we’re exhibiting with the partnerships that we have now and with the best way that we talk.”
Selecting winners
The launch of “Obey Your Thirst” recreated an iconic 1994 advert that starred Grant Hill, with Minnesota Timberwolves star Edwards subbing in for the NBA Corridor of Famer. Edwards’ relationship with Sprite — which continued in a vacation advert that remixed “The Evening Earlier than Christmas” and a collection of social-first spots — has coincided together with his rising profile. Most not too long ago, Edwards led his group to an upset of LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers within the first spherical of the NBA playoffs.
Edwards will not be the one wagon that the model hitched itself to early. Sprite final summer season tapped Doechii as a participant within the third iteration of its Limelight music platform, weeks earlier than the rapper would seize viral consideration on the street to a Greatest Rap Album on the Grammys and high-profile advert appearances for Nike, Jack within the Field and Main League Soccer. For Sprite, discovering the proper companions is about discovering figures that embody “Obey Your Thirst” — not keying in on a star for superstar’s sake.
“I dwell and breathe popular culture, what our customers are doing and what they’re fascinated by,” Chaney stated. “I want let’s imagine we do a complete bunch of analysis into who we’re selecting and all these analytics, which we do in a while… [but] it’s extra instinctual than something.”
These instincts have prolonged to connecting Sprite with subcultures on the rise earlier than they get the notoriety they deserve, because the model famously did with hip-hop. Sprite this yr was the presenting associate of Unequalled’s one-on-one event, an attention-grabbing play from the rising girls’s basketball league that may very well be adopted by the NBA.
“One of many issues that we have been tremendous enthusiastic about on Unequalled was getting in very early, significantly round girls’s sports activities,” Chaney stated. “It is a spot that we hadn’t actually been, and so to do it with such an modern and groundbreaking league, it actually wasn’t a query when it comes to if we should always do it, it was how we should always do it.”
Sprite plans to proceed the partnership with Unequalled and do extra with the league in 2026.
Extending the model
When Sprite launched the unique “Obey Your Thirst” marketing campaign in 1994, the model may talk every little thing it needed the patron to know in a 30-second TV business. That’s clearly not the case immediately, as consideration and media proceed to fragment throughout channels. In type, Sprite has prolonged the present iteration of the marketing campaign, and others, with digital experiences like its “Obey Days” activation powered by QR codes on its packaging.
“All these contact factors are a chance to bolster the model values and what we stand for,” Kroo stated. “ We actually sweat each asset fairly exhausting — large and small — and take into consideration the way to construct legs to it past simply what you would possibly expertise in a chunk of video.”
Together with its QR code expertise, Sprite final month launched Sprite Squad, a text-and-scan activation that provides customers entry to limited-time digital experiences tied to cultural passions in sports activities, music and trend. The model kicked off the hassle by teaming with Black Home Radio, a music platform targeted on Black DJs that play home music, for an occasion and merchandise giveaway.
“We wish our communication to be a two-way road,” Chaney stated. “We do not wish to simply serve messages at [consumers]… it’s additionally a means for them to attach and work together with the model, as properly.”
The Black Home Radio collaboration was with Sprite Chill, a comfortable drink with a cherry-lime taste and a proprietary cooling sensation that turned a everlasting addition to the model’s portfolio this yr. Sprite sees taste improvements (together with a forthcoming one which “blur[s] classes”) as platformable experiences that reinforce what the model stands for and delivers. Innovation and advertising are two elements of the model’s plan to strengthen its place within the soda standings.
“Sprite does have this momentum that we’re constructing on,” Kroo stated. “We’re planning to proceed to take a position extra behind it, as a result of we predict it would play a brilliant necessary position in the way forward for the full portfolio.”
