We have seen brands enter discussions on social issues for many years now. There is often debate amongst people and marketers around the 'right' that brands have in discussing matters outside of their own business. It's always a tricky one because on one hand, anyone with a voice and platform should use it for the betterment of society, but on the other hand, how genuine can brands be if their core responsibility is to themselves and their investors?
Let's take a look at how Sprite tackled the issue of cyber-bullying in their campaign, "Facing a Hater."
The response to this campaign has been overwhelmingly positive with many media outlets calling it heartwarming and beautiful.
Let's break this campaign down,
Methodology: Building an AI using custom machine learning algorithms to collect and categorise hate tweets is a clever use of tech to identify the core of the problem. While Sprite used it to identify the biggest hater, this is a reminder that using AI and machine learning can help us understand our audience and organise data to draw powerful insights that can fuel marketing campaigns.
Relevance: There is a slight link you can make between the brand that is seen as fun, inclusive and refreshing and the issue of hatred and cyber-bullying, but I wouldn't call it a strong one. To the lay person, it is just a soft drink tackling the issue of online hatred, so it might not make immediate sense to all.
Authenticity: Sprite's original intention may be authentic, but the execution did not jump out as fully authentic to me. Of course there needs to be some level of direction involved, but it looked a little scripted to me, including the reaction of the hater. Perhaps I have my critical lens on, but authenticity is so important when brands tackle social issues.
Brand presence: Sprite's brand presence taking a backseat to the issue lends more authenticity to their efforts. If you take a look at their full length video, you'll see that the brand's name or logo was not present in the execution until the end, allowing the issue to take centerstage and viewers to absorb the message fully.
Conversation: The use of #iloveyouhater allowed the conversation to continue and for people to find a way to address cyberbullies. This resulted in 30m+ organic reach on twitter, with a lot of earned media as well.
Overall, this campaign was successful, and I hope brands don't shy away from tackling social issues. As long as the intention and the execution is genuine, you can enact real change in the world and even see an increase in brand favourability as a by-product. Sprite's use of tech was excellent in gathering and organising data to identify the core issue that they would use at the center of their execution. This goes to show that data and tech need not be consumer facing, but can be the engine under the hood of your campaign.
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