WPP Open X: Sprite’s Heat Happens, Stay Cool

For decades, Sprite positioned its lemon-lime drink as the ultimate summer ‘cool down’. This worked – a little too well. Demand soared each summer but, as the weather got colder, sales declined.  

With Sprite’s new brand proposition ‘Heat Happens, Stay Cool’ the brand reframed itself as the year-round antidote to moments of physical and mental heat. And what major cultural event gets more heated than the FIFA World Cup? So, Sprite focused its campaign on the yellow card. 

 Throughout the tournament on Migu, China’s biggest live sports platform, Sprite hijacked the yellow card with a real-time responsive campaign that cooled down heated fans by offering a free Sprite whenever a yellow card was shown during the tournament.

Sprite became unmissable during the World Cup broadcast in China. Ads appeared exactly at the yellow card moment – a real-time media first for a Chinese live broadcast – along with in-app, pre-game and half-time advertising, as well as commentary on the activation by studio hosts.  

And as fans checked Weibo during the games, Sprite joined the social conversation with witty real-time yellow card commentary. Amplification via influencers inspired more fans to join the discussion and claim their free Sprite. 

The campaign delivered 7.8bn total impressions. Fans loved the real-time relevant activation and claimed all 225,000 free Sprites. Crucially, Sprite’s market share grew – in the highly competitive flavoured sparkling drinks category – by +0.6% in the fourth quarter, reversing the negative trend of previous years.