In the desert kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Sprite had been under a dry spell for three years. Zero presence, zero reputation, zero recall, zero trust. We were tasked to reconnect and refuel the minds of online resident young Saudis and resurrect the brand in full force as a no bullshit brand. All this, in the largest and heavily censored Arab state.

We did that through locally-flavored comedy, by creating a platform that’s as refreshingly honest as our brand. In collaboration with Sa7i, a media and production unit who have established themselves as an underground social commentary for Saudi, Sprite Minalakhir was born with a 5-minute comedy series taking an honest spin on life, in Saudi-flavoured slapstick humor, with a bold view on Saudi’s social struggles. Saudi-style humor may seem crude and trashy to the western-eye, but it is their unpolished and sometimes insensitive punches that makes it appealing to the culture. We constantly refreshed our content through social listening and taking public truths from the street. These videos were broadcast on YouTube, the Minalakhir-website, Facebook, and Twitter. Soon enough, blogs caught on Sprite’s controversial move and the campaign took-off on the social networks on its own.

What clearly made this a PR driven campaign was the need to re-establish a brand, build its reputation and at the same time be catalyst to a socially restrictive society to speak their truths.

We produced and launched a short online comedy series with a daring view on Saudi social struggles. This humorous take on daily issues helped spark conversations among Teens. All our social media channels broadcast these videos weekly. We engaged daily with our audience by sharing refreshingly honest truths via Facebook posts, competitions, tweets, YouTube and our website. And then, we took this liquid idea in-store – with all Sprite cans carrying the refreshing truths.

Additionally, to drive home the message loud and clear, we collaborated with “Sa7i”– the Chuck Norris of Saudi online channels.

As a result of this entertainment driven campaign, our connections rocketed from 53 Facebook fans to around 600,000. Our YouTube channel has hit over 6.5 million views not even half way through the campaign and counting.

The Internet buzz metric around brand Sprite shot up. From a monthly average of 10 brand mentions generating less than 15000 impressions before the campaign, it went on to garner a phenomenal 7000 brand mentions with over 141 Million impressions during the campaign period.