With barrels of humour Sprite says #FakeOff!

If we could turn our current scenario into a television series, it could be called ‘Social media, pretend buddies and a deceit of humble brag’. Turning us into a two-faced, fake generation the social-verse has given us a screen to conceal. Finally addressing this elephant in our society and budding the classic tagline ‘Seedhi Baat, No Bakwaas’, Sprite has come up with a revolutionary, relatable campaign titled #FakeOff.

The #FakeOff Gen

The desire to build a social media life that looks glorified is supremely tempting, so much so that we’ve imbibed that as normalcy in the digital generation.

#FakeOff digitally took off to tickle your bones with a powerful punch of reality. They might say that truth is always bitter, but in this case it was a lot funnier.

The plan was to dig deeper than the #ClearHai tagline that Sprite carries on its shoulders. Through series of word playing GIFs and series of short comedy videos by one of the finest comedians Papa CJ, the brand extended their digital activity, building on #FakeOff. The motive was simple - laugh out loud on the presence of pretense in the society.

Talking about the adoption of comedy by brands these days, comedian Papa CJ, also a part of the campaign said, “I think it’s fantastic, because comedy has a way of communication that makes everything memorable and exciting. In the age of limited attention span, it’s a great way to capture the interest of the audience. So if you don’t have a celebrity, what’s better than humor?”

Usually, a campaign is carried ahead through an aesthetically scripted and filmed video more than often having a high emotional quotient. Here, the brand blended an offline standup comedy show  with a live audience into their parts covering various topics to laugh on- right from how people travel just to show it to the world or every other person choosing a (not so) offbeat career path or simply struggling to become a part of the herd.

Over time, Sprite has managed to build its image of being the transparent drink and preaching the same. Here, through an extremely suggestive and playful hashtag, the brand erupts stronger with a clearer message.

Sharing with us about his orientation with the brand Sprite, the Papa CJ shared, “After meeting someone from Coca Cola, I suggested them for me to have a crack at it. Though the overall banner runs under #FakeOff, I was inculcating their tagline ‘Seedhi Baat, No Bakwaas’ for the content I was creating.Broadly, my angle was around the tagline- which was to basically cut through all the hypocrisy and non-sense.”

Highlighting the changes in lifestyle, Sprite portrayed itself as a brand that stands for the youth and believes in straightforwardness.

The digital fizz

With the rise of comedians and their association with brands, this genre is not an innovative element as such. Comedians like Daniel Fernandez, Aditi Mittal, Azeem Banatwalla, Kunal Rao were present in the recent Maggi campaign and then we’re all aware of All India Bakchod’s collaboration with brands like Swiggy, Ola, TrulyMadly, and more; although that is a different kind of content format.

Similarly, Sprite put in their essence in #FakeOff, which had been going on for a while now and garnered massive traction on social media receiving over 600k views and on an average around 10k reactions on their videos.

Follow us here: https://t.co/bMVrs3Ri6R #ClearHai #Sprite pic.twitter.com/TVlaGpQVPb

— Sprite India (@sprite_india) March 10, 2016

Sprite ran a two and a half hour live show keeping the crux of the campaign in the back of their mind and kept the casual conversations fun and natural, which were later broken down into multiple snippets and put out on their page.

As Papa CJ shared, Sprite aimed at getting into the minds of the people and just surface the reality of today’s world. The brand basically wanted to talk about what people practice but do not acknowledge.

Overall, stringing in comedy with #FakeOff, the brand strengthened their brand identity through digital media and managed to hit the hammer right on the nail through their content to reach their target audience.