Sprite and LeBron
I’ve written before about brand contests that collect UGC for various reasons. The Sprite and Lebron James promotion to develop a Theme Song for use in a TV commercial for Sprite that will be shown during the NBA finals have taken this increasingly common idea and pulled together a contest that I find surprising in its depth.
The deliverable: Using the tracks and mixer available on the LeBron 23-23 promo site produce a mix that best represents Lebron, with the target of him being able to use the track as the basis for a Theme Song. You can also add your own music to vocals to the mix. Load up the track and let the next stage begin. Before you can start to mix however, you have to provide a promo code from a bottle (which is also available by submitting a form). Each mix requires a new promo code.
The voting: the contest is in 3 stages. The top 100 tracks, as voted for by site visitors, make it through to the next stage. They encourage you to to promote your track through whatever means necessary including a widget that can be downloaded to the “consumer’s community networking page(s).” The second phase is judging by a panel, which will also take into account the promotional activities to produce a final 23, which then gets placed back on the website. The final stage is back to visitor voting, either on the site or via text.
Additional elements: They’ve extended the promotion in a few ways.
- There’s an instant win element associated with the under the cap numbers to drive people to the site in the first place. To try for the instant win, to need to register with the site.
- The associated blog keeps people in the loop with what is happening with the contest and has the occasional post by the main man. I like that they’ve done this on blogspot, as too often you see brands build their own due to internal policies (IT, security or otherwise). In the posts, they encourage the marketing of the tracks and the entries
this contest is about hustle - making a hit theme song for LeBron James. I know a lot of people out there with talent but weren’t willing to put in the work necessary to promote themselves. Everyone has heard of selling mixtapes out of the trunk of your car. That’s what this contest is. If you can’t get people to vote for you, you probably can’t get a hit song on the radio.
- The NBA site have an extension to the programme that allows you to mix video clips, using tracks from the mix competition.
- Ongoing RM - to get into the contest or the instant win, you need to create a site ID, which means Sprite get your email address to talk to you more. Looking at it, the ID can be used for future contests as well.
Other advertising: I’ve seen TV advertising for this and reading the rules it looks like there will be more during the final voting round, as they state that your track could be used. There’s bound to be a lot of online media as well. Moving forward, they intend to use the track and the winner’s details in advertising in multiple forms and in PR.
The legalese: as tends to be the norm, by entering into the competition, you lose all rights to your track. I’m not sure if I’m reading it right, but you also lose the right to be identified as the writer if you get chosen as the winner. Morally, I have issues with this position, even though it is the usual legal one taken in contests like this. Here, you are being treated as doing work for hire, but are not being compensated for it.
Link to the brand and to sales: One of the strongest links to sales that I’ve seen, given that to enter you have to buy product (strictly speaking you don’t but that is the intent). The more promo codes you have the more entries you can have and the more votes. The instant win section encourages those you are not artistic - they at least come to the site, give Sprite their details and can vote on the music. The contest brings to life the brand ’sublymonal’ advertising, linking it to music and sports through all parts of the campaign.
There’s a lot of good things to take on board here, to bring your campaign to life. It;s too easy to skip over many things, to think that all you need is a UGC part. The motivation for entry may be exposure for work and effort, but that is not the only driver to get people to the site and thinking about the brand. It’s often difficult to get that extended reach. From the blog entries, they appear to be wanting to extend the relationship with the people who entered, talking about additional promotional activities that are being look at. This commitment to do more than just the contest is a strong incentive to brand loyalty.
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POSTED IN: Engaging the Customer, User Generated Content
1 opinion for Sprite and LeBron
kubuchi
May 20, 2008 at 11:37 pm
don`t care fool
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