SPRITE HAD BECOME IRRELEVANT IN THE BOOMING NO SUGAR SEGMENT IN CHINA, MASSIVELY DISRUPTED BY THE NO.1 NO SUGAR BRAND GENKI FOREST. HENCE, WE RE-LAUNCHED SPRITE NO SUGAR WITH A NEW TASTE THAT CONSISTENTLY BEAT THE COMPETITION IN BLIND TESTS, BUT HOW TO GET CONSUMERS TO TRY IT IN THE MARKET?

No Sugar carbonated drinks were growing 12X faster than regular carbonated drinks in China, but Sprite was slow to react and massively disrupted. Local brand Genki Forest led the disruption, becoming the No.1 No Sugar brand in China, 7X the size of old Sprite No Sugar.

Facing relentless losses, Sprite No Sugar was relaunched with an all-new, superior taste proven in blind tests.

A NATIONWIDE ACTIVATION THAT PROMOTED THE NO.1 NO SUGAR COMPETITOR GENKI FOREST WITH A CHEEKY “BUY ONE GET ONE” OFFER… EXCEPT THE FREE ONE WAS ALL-NEW SPRITE NO SUGAR.

WE CALLED IT “BUY THEM GET US FREE”.

Our product did the talking, and our confidence did the selling. Because we knew we really had no competition. Sprite no sugar, no competition.

All new Sprite No Sugar was unbeatable. So unbeatable, that we didn’t even have to promote it. Instead, we promoted the competition. This was our cheeky way of showing how confident we were in the taste of new Sprite No Sugar. Now every time a Genki Forest drinker would buy Genki Forest, they would also try the great new taste of Sprite No Sugar. In one move, we hijacked the scale of Genki Forest to scale up Sprite No Sugar, and proved our product was better.

NEW SPRITE NO SUGAR WAS UNBEATABLE, CONSISTENTLY OUTPERFORMING THE NO.1 NO SUGAR COMPETITOR GENKI FOREST IN BLIND TESTS, AND IN FACT BEATING EVERY OTHER NO SUGAR COMPETITOR AS WELL.

THE CHALLENGE WAS WE KNEW THIS, BUT CONSUMERS DIDN’T.

We knew if we could find a way to get Genki Forest consumers to try and compare the two products for themselves, we would win. Hence our strategy was to provoke the comparison directly, in a cheeky and disruptive way.

We would challenge the biggest No Sugar brand Genki Forest. We were so confident in the taste of our product that we weren’t afraid to pit it directly against them in a bid to win over their consumers. Our brief: hijack the No.1 No Sugar competitors’ ubiquity in the market to make new Sprite No Sugar famous.

WE KEPT THE COMPETITOR AT THE CENTER OF SPRITE NO SUGAR’S RELAUNCH ACROSS EXECUTIONS, HENCE PROVOKING A DIRECT COMPARISION BETWEEN THE TWO PRODUCTS WITH EVERY SINGLE IMPRESSION.

‘Sprite No Sugar, No Competition’ kicked off nationwide with the cheeky “Buy them, Get us free” promo using image recognition technology on China’s biggest digital platform Wechat. Now every time consumers would buy or scan Genki Forest, they would get an instantly redeemable coupon for new Sprite No Sugar. Later we embedded the technology so they could scan any No Sugar competitor and try New Sprite No Sugar for free!

The 2-week promo was supported by a disruptive advertising push “promoting” the competition across social and out of home. Cheeky twists on well known Genki Forest claims and imagery allowed our creatives to delight consumers by clearly featuring the competition in our advertising, without actually ever actually showing their brand or product.

Result 1 – Delivering 1.99 billion impressions in only 2 weeks.

Result 2 – 4.6M social media engagements (aggregated shares, comments and likes)

Result 3 – Generated over 7MM trials for new Sprite No Sugar.

Result 4 – +8 to +17% lift in activated stores, vs. -1 to -18% decline for Genki Forest.

Result 5 – In 2022, Sprite No Sugar grew 46% (fastest in the segment) vs. 19% growth for Genki Forest, and increased market share by 2.1x.