SUNNY SKY PRODUCTS, LLC., a leading manufacturer and distributor of specialty dispensed beverages, announced today it has completed the acquisition of Turbo Energy Drink, LLC in an all cash transaction. The acquisition will expand distribution of Sunny Sky Products’ beverage offering further into the on-premise (Bar & Nightclub) channel.
Turbo Energy Drink is the creation of Chris Hannemann. A former marketing manager for Red Bull North America, Hannemann has since successfully guided other energy drink companies to national success. Hannemann co-founded and launched Turbo Energy Drink in 2007 to provide a high-quality, affordable fountain bag-in-box alternative in the energy drink product category. Turbo is available in bars and nightclubs across the country.
“Sunny Sky acquired Turbo Energy Drink to expand its overall market penetration as well as strategic reach into the on-premise channel. Energy drinks are an ever-growing and relevant beverage category; I am proud to add Turbo Energy to our portfolio and add Hannemann to our team,” said W. Ashley Edens, CEO of Sunny Sky Products.
Hannemann, Turbo Energy’s co-founder will serve as Vice President for Sunny Sky Product’s on-premise division. “Chris brings with him a wealth of industry experience and passion for the Turbo brand. I have great confidence in Chris’ ability to unlock the synergies between the two companies.” said Edens. When asked about joining Sunny Sky Products, Hannemann stated, “By joining forces with Sunny Sky Products, it enables Turbo Energy Drink to utilize Sunny Sky’s vast financial resources and product portfolio to better serve both our distributors and end users alike.”
For the entire 2013 NFL season, Pepsi will be asking football fans to ramp up their fandom. For some people, those people who treat Sunday as religious but not because of church, there is no questioning whether they are fan enough. Those obsessed fans may want to turn down the fandom a few notches, like Barry Lemke, a kooky New York Giants supporter who tries to prove his dedication to Big Blue wide receiver Victor Cruz. Lemke can’t find his Giants jersey, but he does have a separate bed from his wife covered in Victor Cruz sheets, among other paraphernalia.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, we have Dirk and Jill Mulroy, Bengals fans who will do whatever it takes to impress Cincinnati quarterback Andy Dalton. I don’t want to ruin the gags, let’s just say Andy Dalton Fragrance and leave it at that for after the jump. Both spots feature heavy product placement even though the plots don’t have anything to do with Pepsi. The writing and acting makes for a really potent combination. A lot of commercials try too hard to be funny – these two try and succeed.
At West Village’s Alger House—usually a posh, turn-of-the-century home where Turkish rugs cover hardwood, old paintings of hunting dogs hang on the walls and, last night, a fancy bar was re-adorned to serve vitaminwater—all eyes were on the stage, waiting for the young star to appear. JoJo’s four-piece band and two backup singers stood at the ready, but she was nowhere to be seen when her powerful voice first washed across the room; she descended, near the middle of the venue, down an iron spiral staircase, slowly, like a star performing in a major Gene Kelly production. Under twinkling lights in a simple white dress, the 22-year-old singer whose first #1 single came, amazingly, nine years ago, delivered a heartfelt and glamorous set for this summer’s vitaminwater and The FADER #uncapped series.
“Before we go any further, I think it’s right that we take it back,” she smiled, before launching into “Leave (Get Out),” a song from her first album that she later told Miss Info was recorded before she’d ever been kissed. (That full interview will be coming soon.) JoJo has clearly grown up, though, judging by her moving and explicit take on Drake’s “Marvins Room,” a rendition that’s chorus—ending on I’m still in your head—she accentuated last night with a mockingly psychotic laugh. She brought in quite the team around her for “Anything,” one of her poppiest hits, updating it with not only a rising singer and guitarist named Francesco (“My favorite 17-year-old from Toronto ever!” she cheered him on) but Casey Veggies, the Los Angeles #uncapped veteran with rap’s brightest grin. Watch it above, and even better for you, next week we’ll have a free download of JoJo and Casey Veggies’ new “Anything (#uncapped Remix)”.
See photos of the party below, and for interviews and performances from all of this (and past) year’s #uncapped events, check out the vitaminwater YouTube channel. #uncapped is making Monday nights all summer long less boring with surprise performances in traditionally mundane venues. For chances to win tickets and up-to-the-minute location reveals, follow vitaminwater and FADER on Twitter.
Devin Graham has always seemed right up Mountain Dew's alley. The director, aka Devin Supertramp, who specializes in building giant outdoor contraptions that fling attractive young people into the air, was even apparently the inspiration for a2011 Mountain Dew spot—its footage of BMX bikers launching themselves into a lake sure looked a lot likethis 2010 Graham production.Now, Mountain Dew has officially teamed up with Graham for a new video and an upcoming tour. The video, below, presents lots of woozy footage of people flying back and forth on a giant catapult—with plenty of Mountain Dew signage and products around. (One guy empties a bottle of the stuff on his face mid-'pult, adding to his own personal horror.) Attractive young people who missed out on this stunt, worry not. Dew and Devin are going on a road trip! As Grahamwrites on his site:"On September 1st, we're jumping into an RV full of Mountain Dew and all the equipment we need to pull off some seriously amazing stunts. And the best part is, YOU will be planning the locations and the stunts themselves right along with us!" Graham has worked with brands before—on stunts like thisneck-breakingly awesome lake-jumping waterslide,co-branded by Vooray.
Coca-Cola continues its do-gooding with a partnership with the World Wildlife Fund to draw attention to a problem close to the beverage company's heart: the survival of its iconic brand mascot, the polar bear.
Working with agency Essencius in Denmark, the brand placed a two-ton ice sculpture of a polar bear in Copenhagen. Every six hours, the temperature would rise one degree. Fans logging on via a Facebook app could live-stream the action, and for every 1,000 likes or shares, the temperature would lower by one degree. The message: You have the power to save the bear.
American pop-star Katy Perry is set to 'Roar' at the MTV Video Music Awards.
When Katy Perry
takes the mic for a song during Sunday night's MTV Video Music Awards,
the cable channel will temporarily shift focus from inside the event's
arena—Brooklyn's Barclays Center—to her performance's secret location in the New York City borough. Considering Perry's penchant for tweet-worthy outfits, coupled with the outdoor scenery, Twitter will likely buzz with chatter about the pop star's antics.
Pepsi,
a major sponsor for the Viacom event, plans to own the moment in terms
of branding with a social-media twist. The soda, singer and MTV will
encourage people to use the hashtag #Katynow to unlock clues about her
forthcoming, full-length album, Prism, such as song titles and lyrics.
Throughout the weekend, people can utilize the clues to listen to two
songs from her album via a Pepsi microsite and then vote for one by
tweeting the title along with #KatyNow. The winning song will be
revealed on MTV moments before Perry's VMA performance and then released
through iTunes on Sept. 17 (the entire album goes to market in
mid-October). During the VMAs, Perry will sing her first release from
the record, "Roar," which has reportedly been a veritable hit in terms of paid downloads so far.
Chad Stubbs, senior director of marketing for PepsiCo, and his team
believe overall brand engagement will spike during Perry's outdoor
performance against a Brooklyn backdrop.
"We wanted to really blow this out with an iconic artist and an iconic location," he said. "It will make for great television."
Pepsi will run TV spots while repeatedly appearing as a sponsor during
MTV's telecast. Also that night, the soda maker will offer consumers a
complimentary download of Perry's "Roar" if they sign up with Pepsi's rewards platform.
If you’re a company looking for a smart way to incorporate 3D printing
in your ad campaigns, look no further than this example from Coca-Cola.
To promote the launch of its new “mini” bottles in Israel, Coca-Cola
invited people to its custom-made 3D printing lab, where it soda giant
scanned the visitors and gave them 3D-printed “mini me” versions of
themselves.
While the use case isn’t new, it does show how even the biggest of brands
can do something both simple and interesting with 3D printing. One the
technology’s most basic strengths is customization, which Coca-Cola’s
campaign shows off well.
A group of chicly dressed patrons were shocked to see a Brooklyn art gallery destroyed by an unassuming man who appeared to be one of their peers.
After he drew on the paintings and ate part of an exhibit, onlookers found out that the surprising stunt was actually a prank by Vitaminwater and CollegeHumor.
The video, posted last week, is the third in a series of four such
prankvertisements commissioned by Coca-Cola's Vitaminwater brand, Mike Shields reported at AdWeek.
In the video, a young man saunters into a staged gallery opening at
Williamsburg's 7 Dunham and "improves" the collection by painting over
abstract canvas works and taking a bite out of a sandwich
that was on display as part of a sculpture piece. The stunned
gallery-goers react with a mixture of open-mouthed shock, stifled
laughter, and fear ("I think you can get arrested for what you're
doing," one lady warns the prankster) as the camera cuts away to the
CollegeHumor team enjoying the fruits of its labor from a production facility.
The prank comes to a happy conclusion when the woman introduced in
the beginning of the video as the gallery's artist reveals to the
audience that she loves the changes the prankster made, inviting the
once-anxious patrons to join the party by splattering the gallery with
paint of their own.
Afterward, viewers see the logo for Viatminwater's "Make Boring Brilliant" campaign, which encourages people to use social media to suggest boring situations in need of an exciting prank.
“Herbal beverage” is not the first product most consumers would associate with Coca-Cola (KO), but the company is taking steps to market drinks other than sodas. In May
it pledged to help fight global obesity, in part by offering more
beverage options. On Wednesday, Coca-Cola made good on that promise,
introducing a bottled “herbal tea” drink called Habu.
Habu is made with four herbs: roselle, licorice, luo han guo, and cogon grass. Roselle is a species of hibiscus that’s said to lower cholesterol and is commonly included in Asian teas; licorice is used to ease coughs, sooth ulcers and stomach inflammation, and control blood sugar; luo han guo is a fruit that’s used as a sweetener; and cogon grass
is used to treat fevers and other conditions. Coca-Cola did not
immediately respond to inquiries about whether it would market Habu as a
health product, but spokeswoman Sharolyn Choy said in an e-mail that
it’s “designed to be an everyday drink that combines modern tastes with
traditional herbal properties.”
“These [herbs] are blended together to make Habu a truly great tasting
herbal drink,” she said. “It’s not bitter but you can taste the presence
of the four herbs.” Each 280-milliliter (9.5-ounce) bottle contains 140
calories.
According to Beverage Digest, soda sales are on the decline.
Diet Coke fell 3 percent last year while regular Coke declined by one
percentage point. That's thanks in part to campaigns against the drinks —
sugary sodas have been cited as a leading cause of obesity, while diet
sodas have come under attack for their artificial sweeteners. But now,
the Coca-Cola Company has decided it's time to fight back. The soda
giant created an advertisement to run in major newspapers defending the
safety of aspartame, which is used as a sweetening agent in Diet Coke.
USA Today,
one of the newspapers running the ad, reports that the soft drink giant
will put out messaging reassuring consumers that the controversial
sugar substitute aspartame is completely safe. "The safety of aspartame
is supported by more than 200 studies over the last 40 years," states
the ad.
In addition to USA Today, the advertisement will appear in The Atlanta Journal Constitution on Thursday, and next week in the Chicago Tribune. Vice president of social commitment, Caren Pasquale Seckler, explained to USA Today
that the purpose of the media blast "is to bring to light what is often
overlooked, that low- and no-calorie sweeteners which have been tested
extensively are safe and beneficial in weight management."
Coca-Cola's sugar-free soda was first introduced in 1982 with the
tagline, "Just for the taste of it!" Back then it was sweetened with
saccharin. Diet Coke started using aspartame in 1983, when the sugar
substitute became available in the U.S.
Life was much simpler back then, wasn't it? Coke looks back on olden
times in this new one-minute spot, out of David, Buenos Aires.
"Grandfather" presents a day in two men's lives using a familiarsplit screen
approach. But this time, the left-hand sepia-toned frame shows the
routine of a young 1950's married man, while on the right the same actor
portrays his modern-day counterpart. In the end, the generations merge
together seamlessly when we discover the two men are grandfather and
grandson.
The old-timer's life emerges as the simpler one in which time moves
slower, food portions are smaller, snacks are healthier and physical
exertion is a given in his daily routine. Another noticeable difference
is his happier demeanor-- none of his lifestyle choices seem to put a
strain on him and, hey, gets to enjoy a guilt-free cold cola at the end.
The spot, which is backed by Tom Jones' "It's Not Unusual," began
airing in the U.K. today as a part of Coke's continuing efforts
to raise awareness about balanced diets and active healthy living. It
also strategically presents their zero calorie and zero sugar option,
Coca-Cola Zero. You know, because that's what grandpa would have chosen,
if he could have, back in the day.
Coca-Cola also took a more lighthearted, animated approach to
promoting the active lifestyle in another spot created out of The
Cyranos and directed by Johnny Kelly of Nexus, who also was behind
Chipotle's celebrated "Back to the Start." Check out his director's cut here.
Coca-Cola Enterprises will launch a fresh campaign this week designed to help boost theU.K.'s recycling rates by offering discounts to families who reuse or recycle their plastic bottles.
The “Don't Waste. Create” campaign will be launched Wednesday, asking customers to submit recycling pledges to receive a 50 pence (77 cents) voucher off their next purchase of Coca-Cola bottled drinks, including Coca-Cola, Fanta, Sprite and Dr Pepper.
The campaign website also will suggest ways of reusing old plastic bottles, such as turning them into bird feeders or self-watering plant pots, in a bid to raise awareness of plastic waste and keep children occupied during the summer holidays.
“By asking [customers] to reuse and then recycle plastic bottles, ‘Don't Waste. Create’ encourages families to think more sustainably while having fun, giving them a tangible way to help reduce their household waste,” said Nick Brown, associate director for recycling at Coca-Cola Enterprises.
Coca-Cola is keen to increase recycling rates to help feed the plastic bottle recycling plant that it co-owns with ECO Plastics in Hemswell.
The plant has allowed Coca-Cola to meet its target to include at least 25 percent recycled plastic in everybottle it produces, and the company is now aiming to further increase the proportion of recycled material.
For much of the U.S., Mello Yello is a brand they may have heard of but never spotted in the wild.
Launched nationally in 1979 as the "World's Fastest Soft Drink" with
ties to the National Hot Rod Association, the citrus soda gained
rockstar status in 1990 when Tom Cruise drove the Mello Yello car in the
"Days of Thunder" movie. Fast forward a decade and the brand's
popularity began to wane as parent company Coca-Cola
launched new citrus brands. Mello Yello was relegated to more of a
regional role, with primary distribution in the Southeast and Midwest.
Now, the brand is making a comeback, with Coca-Cola relaunching it
nationally in 2010 and beginning to invest in earnest this year. Mello
Yello recently went back to its roots, taking over the NHRA sponsorship
from Coca-Cola sibling Full Throttle and launching a campaign, including
TV, radio and updated packaging. The bulk of its marketing budget is
dedicated to huge amounts of sampling -- handing out cans to thousands
of race attendees, many of whom are experiencing the brand for the first
time.
"It's a great opportunity to engage with new fans but also connect
with fans who had tried it before or maybe forgot about it," said Al
Rondon, senior sports marketing manager at Coca-Cola North America
Group. "There are a lot of folks who may have never tried Mello Yello,
especially out west where it's not as developed."
The new partnership with NHRA has given the brand a national
platform, with 24 races taking place from New Hampshire to Florida,
California to Kansas. Mr. Rondon says the deal has helped Mello Yello to
"amplify" its retail efforts, with extensive programs at outlets
including Circle K, Walmart and Domino's. The brand works with Melt, Atlanta, on creative, as well as Red Moon on program and event activation.
"The brand never went away, but we hadn't really put a big marketing
effort behind it," Mr. Rondon said. "It's rejuvenated the bottlers,
because they felt like we hadn't done anything with the brand. Now
putting Mello Yello on a core, strategic partnership like NHRA shows we
are putting resources behind it."
Mello Yello is also looking to stake a slightly different claim this
time around, aiming to attract a more diverse audience than simply the
teen consumers it targeted in the 1990s. Mr. Rondon says that while NHRA
has a strong male fan base and is a good way to target males 18 to 49,
it also appeals to women. The sport is also more ethnically diverse than
Nascar and IndyCar, with a strong following among the African-American
and Hispanic communities.
Going after a broader target market could also help the brand
distinguish itself from PepsiCo's Mtn Dew, which is extremely popular
with teens and younger consumers. Last year, Mello Yello outperformed
the carbonated soft drink industry, with a 3% increase in volume,
according to Beverage Digest. Volume is down single digits in the first half of this year, however.
Mello Yello is the No. 3 player in the citrus category behind Mtn Dew and Sun Drop, which is marketed by Dr Pepper Snapple Group. According to Beverage Digest, Mello Yello moved 43 million cases last year; by comparison Mtn Dew moved 628 million cases.
"Mtn Dew is one of the strongest and best marketed brands in the
business, and the Coke bottlers need an entry to compete with it,"
explained John Sicher, editor and publisher of Beverage Digest. "But
even for Coke, competing with Mtn Dew is no easy task."
Indeed, Coca-Cola has for years tried various tactics to compete with
the fast-growing Mtn Dew brand. In 2009, the company launched an audacious promotion,
offering consumers a free sample of Vault to anyone who bought Mtn Dew.
Vault has since been discontinued as Coca-Cola seeks to focus its
energies in the citrus category on Mello Yello.
Get out your hankies. Unsafe drinking water is the leading cause of
death for kids in sub-Saharan Africa. That's morbid enough, but DDB New
York's treatment of the subject, for charity Water is Life, is what
really gets you. Via a beautifully shot film, the agency tells the story
of a four-year-old Maasai boy, Nkaitole, potentially one of the
one-in-five kids who won't reach their fifth birthday--the latest
statistic on the mortality rate of children raised without potable H20.
So Water is Life takes Nkaitole to do all the things he's never done
before, checking off items on a bucket list he shouldn't have even had
to think about at his age.
The campaign is a follow up from the award-winning Hashtag Killer campaign,
which tried to juxtapose the inanity of your First World Problems by
asking poor, disenfranchised Haitians to read out your tweets about
leather couches and broken iPhones back to you.
This time, the campaign will include the hashtag #5YearstoLive, as
well as video clips featuring American kids -- who probably won't die at
five years -- reciting their own bucket lists. Print ads and radio
spots are also on their way.
The success of Coca-Cola's Share a Coke campaign
in which the brand name was replaced by 150 of Britain's most popular
names has led to a lot of scratching of heads as to what it was about
this campaign that meant it worked so well.
Chris Deere, head of
brand activation at Coca-Cola Great Britain explains that, beyond the
obvious attempt at personalization, the campaign is about sharing: "We
wanted people not just to find bottles with their own names on, but to
surprise a friend or someone they love by seeking out a bottle with
their name on it," he explains, pointing out, too, that social media is
one way that global brands can make local connections.
Of
course, Coke is fortunate in that, even with the removal of its
traditional logo, its script is still iconic, the red and white
immediately recognisable, the world over. Deere admits that the strategy
wouldn't have worked with a brand which didn't already have so much
equity behind it. So would others be foolish to try to emulate the
success of this campaign?
The answer seems to be no, as long as
any debranding is undertaken with some considerable thought as to the
underlying strategy or purpose behind it, and whether it will work for
the brand in question. Because, for something seemingly so simple, an
awful lot of thought would have gone into the Coke summer campaign, as
Sally O'Rourke, managing director of brand insight consultancy Promise
Communispace points out. "What Coke does extremely well is to appear not
to take itself too seriously," she says. "The campaign is about a
quirky moment, something for me, a one-off, and a moment in time."
O'Rourke
sees the trend for more 'silent' or 'quiet' branding as an antidote to
the busy and frequently 'branded' world in which we live in. "The sheer
amount of competing information out there means that it is no longer
sufficient for brands to shout louder than others in the marketplace
about their virtues. Consumers are growing weary of the noise," she
says.
Starbucks has also tried to reduce some of this
noise-weariness by removing its moniker and debranding some of its
stores so that they seem more local, more approachable and less
corporate. But what Coke and Starbucks have in common, of course, is
that they are two of the most easily recognisable brands in the world.
Tony
Cortizas, vice president of global brand strategy at Melia Hotels
International, points out that Starbucks faces similar issues to Nike,
which he believes was one of the first brands to use such a strategy.
Nike has moved away from using its name, preferring just the swoosh
logo. According to Cortizas, brand maturity or saturation comes into
play: "Starbucks' problem, which is the same that Nike has faced, is
that it is everywhere," he says. "You reach a point where your logo is
no longer cool."
And debranding can also work well when a company
needs to overcome prejudice. Brian Millar, strategy director at Sense
Worldwide points out that it can encourage people to listen to what's
being said, rather than who's saying it. He recalls writing a tube
advertising campaign for the British Museum which featured long copy but
no logo. "Research showed that people who wouldn't consider going to
the British Museum also wouldn't read an ad about it. So we got rid of
the logo, and just wrote interesting things. If anybody got to the last
paragraph, they'd realise it was an ad for the British Museum," he
explains. He points out that Apple has just done something very similar with a recent print campaign:
"You have to read the copy to realise it's an Apple ad. You find
yourself nodding along with the copy, and – badda bing – there's the
brand."
Of course the term debranding is in itself just a label
which can mean different things to different people. And it's important
to bear in mind that a logo doesn't equal a brand. These days, brand experience is key and the holy grail for many is to create such a great experience, that there is less of a need for overt branding or labeling: the experience can speak for itself.
And
while dropping your logo may make you seem more forward-thinking, bold,
or less corporate, there have also been attempts to debrand which have
gone very wrong. Sony Pictures released a debranded DVD of its film The
Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, in an attempt to tie the product in with
its 'hacker' theme. But the disk, which looked 'homemade', did not match
the 'slick marketing and photographic design' that the rest of the
merchandise featured, as an analysis by Marketing Week points out. In fact a number of consumers believed it was fake and tried to return it.
So,
whatever you do, don't try to be too clever – or worse, end up looking
duplicitous or hypocritical. Tim Hill of The Brand Union points out that
consumers were "shocked and horrified" to learn that Harris + Hoole - a
chain of coffee shops many believed was independent and artisan -
actually had the backing of the UK's largest retailer, Tesco. "A
business can no longer survive with an opaque facade," he warns.
That
said, digital or brand 'noise' isn't going to decrease any time soon,
and Uri Baruchin, strategy director at WPP agency The Partners, believes
that brands that can effectively create "gaps in the noise" would do
well to do so. Coke found such a gap, and it resulted in growth in Facebook traffic on its branded page of a reported 870%.
Every kitchen has its list of regulars that consistently make
appearances. For one it may be butter, cheese, bacon, and eggs, while
another kitchen may populate its shelves with margarine, cottage cheese,
tofu, and egg whites. But there is a subset within the spectrum of food
that requires extra attention: the beverages.
Just as every kitchen has its preferred food items, every household
quenches its thirst with a cast of regulars. But there is one thing that
juice, lemonade, tea, and the like all have in common -- when bubbles
are added, things change.
The Mastrad Purefizz Soda Maker ($79.99)
is a simple carbonating contrivance that expands the drink
possibilities in the kitchen. Easy to use, the device comes with two
caps that fit upon a sleek serving container. Add a CO2 cartridge to the
carbonating cap, and after the fizz has been added, the storage cap can
be used -- making it so that the gadget itself becomes a storage
vessel.
To make the fizz happen, just place on the charger cap and twist in the
CO2 cylinder. Shake the bottle about a dozen times to distribute and
incorporate the gas, let rest for about 3-5 minutes, and then vent with
the pressure release button. No electricity or batteries required. Then,
the freshly carbonated beverage can be stored in the fridge or taken to
go. By replacing the carbonating cap with a more traditional one, it
becomes a brand new kitchen staple, hiding in plain sight.
On behalf of Vitamin Water, CollegeHumor orchestrated a prank in which a panhandler enters a subway car and begins do quite the opposite of begging for money. He regales subway passengers with stories of his increasing success and the fact that he's not holding an empty latte cup to fill with money, he just refuses to litter. The humor escalates to the point the entire subway car is giving the man high fives. The stunt is part of the brand's Make Boring Brilliant campaign. The boring, in this case, is, of course, the lowly panhandler seen all day every day as one makes one's way through the city. What's not boring, of course, is that fact that some of these panhandlers are good folks who have simply fallen on bad fortune and are desperately doing whatever they can to survive. We're not sure poking fun at that situation is the best marketing move a brand could make.
Diet Pepsi's
latest celebrity campaign, with Josh Duhamel as an irresponsible
grocery employee, earned the top spot in the world of viral video. In
the ad, Mr. Duhamel is halfheartedly undercover as he operates the
grocery check-out line; sometimes he poses with fans, and sometimes he
shrugs as shoppers say, "you should be an actor!" His antics, which
include throwing customers' produce across the store and grocery
cart-racing, racked up 2.3 million views with an effort from Weber Shandwick, with director P.R. Brown and Bau-Da Design.
It has become part of Pepsi's trademark
strategy to capture consumer attention through celebrity videos. Recent
Diet Pepsi spots included Sofia Vergara and David Beckham. In a similar
vein, PepsiMAX's strategy is to take sports celebrities such as Jeff
Gordon and Kyrie Irving deep undercover and shock the people they come
across. In Mr. Irving's spot "Uncle Drew" last year, Pepsi MAX dressed
the NBA star to look like a tubby, 60-year-old geezer who then shocked
20-somethings in a neighborhood basketball court by out-performing them.
Nationwide Program Invites America to Vote for Short Films at Sprite.com as Student Finalists Compete for Fan Favorite Award and Green Ribbon Panel Award
Got a thirst to see the very latest film creations from America's up-and-coming filmmakers? Sprite Films(TM) today debuts four original short films developed from script-to-screen by four talented college student filmmaker teams from across the country. Starting today through August 31, America can view the short films at Sprite.com and vote to crown one team with the Fan Favorite Award. For the first time in the program's history, the team which creates the winning short film selected by a Green Ribbon Panel will be awarded the exclusive opportunity to work on a $30,000 contract job for Sprite and The Coca-Cola Company.
"The Sprite Films program returned this year to encourage self-expression and authenticity among student filmmakers nationwide with the challenge to develop a script that brings to life an aspect of urban culture while boldly delivering a story from their individual point of views," said Kimberly Paige, Assistant Vice President, Sprite. "Sprite has long been a cultural advocate that embraces youth innovators, and we value the talent and vision of these young filmmakers - one team of which will assist the brand in the near future for a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to work alongside us on a special film project.
