Branded Entertainment has become commonplace in the US, however it generally falls short in one of two ways. The content either offers little value to the brand beyond basic name association or the content offers little interest or value to the viewer. Effective Brand Entertainment must offer value to the consumer while asserting a brand’s point-of-view on the content being put forth. This reciprocal benefit to brand and consumer is very rare in the market.

Bringing the Sprite Dunk Intensity Meter to life faced many challenges. Born of the new brand positioning of 'Sprite is intensity that can’t be contained', the simple idea of measuring the force of a dunk immediately captivated the NBA and lead-broadcast partner, TNT. The engineering experts developed a device that would measure the impact of a dunk. Once solved, we showcased the meter at the Sprite Dunk Contest. After its initial success, the NBA is looking to implement the technology further into the game, with even wider applications to aid the game, players and fans.

The event aired on the evening of February 25th in front of 5m live TV viewers. Over 48 hours it generated 148,021 tweets, 2,260 forum postings, 1,537 news mentions and 1,440 blog mentions and reached 171m earned media impressions. The video content captured at the event was uploaded to NBA.com/dunk and YouTube. The videos have generated 1,267,405 views and counting. Most importantly the NBA wants to make the meter a permanent fixture of the game.