Coke aims to bring Sprite's success home

By Jeremiah McWilliams

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Coca-Cola Co. is launching the first global marketing campaign for Sprite, already the world’s leading lemon-lime soft drink. One aim: turn around the brand’s lagging fortunes in the U.S. and encourage its surge in international markets.

Born in 1961, Sprite was advertised in the early years as a mixer for alcoholic cocktails. Now, it’s marketed mostly to young people, and those teens are key to Coca-Cola’s plans to refresh the brand.

The new campaign, which Coke dubs The Spark in honor of Sprite’s new logo, rolls out this year in Europe, Africa, Asia and North America. It will feature eight commercials for television and cinemas, as well as an online tool, starting in March at Sprite.com, that allows teens to remix and mash-up songs.

The Sprite Spark Music Project features Drake’s song “Forever” and includes the remix tool. An iPhone application will allow fans to access the music mixer and remix tracks on their phones, and they can upload their tracks to Facebook.

Starting in April, the Sprite Spark Film Project will also allow users to create their own 45-second animated movies. Coca-Cola did not disclose the campaign’s cost.

“We’re really looking to engage consumers with the new campaign and treat Sprite like the huge global brand that it is,” said Shay Drohan, Coca-Cola’s senior vice president of sparkling brands.

Sprite is Coca-Cola’s No. 2 global brand, behind Coca-Cola. It is Coke’s largest brand in China, No. 2 in India and No. 3 in the U.S.

Sprite drove much of Coca-Cola’s soft drink growth in the 1980s and 1990s, with U.S. sales jumping more than 150 percent between 1985 and 1999, according to Beverage Digest. But in the early 2000s Coca-Cola stopped pushing the brand as hard in North America, said John Sicher, Beverage Digest editor. U.S. sales tumbled 19 percent between 1999 and 2008.

“Sprite has not gotten the focus that it deserved for some years,” said Sicher. “It’s absolutely smart for Coke to be refocusing on this brand. It can be, and it should be, performing better than it is.”