Sprite Combines Music, Social Nets and Reality TV in European Campaign

Coca-Cola brand Sprite has launched a campaign in Europe that links music, reality TV and the Internet in a new way, by sponsoring an ongoing YouTube series about a young unknown British singer chosen to try her luck in the New York music scene—with advice from online viewers.

The series, produced by Austria-based FFP, follows 23-year-old singer/guitarist/pianist Katie Vogel and airs on YouTube under the title “Green Eyed World”.

The first episode—technically, “Episode Zero”—posted on April 1, is a six-minute clip introducing Katie and her British family and getting her onto a plane for New York. Episode One is due to launch on May 1, and the series is set to run for five online “seasons” of four episodes each, with the final installment airing in December 2009.

The series is very lightly branded by Sprite, in a logo mention at the end of the clip and in an ad on the YouTube page.

The FullSix Group is managing a global multimedia campaign to promote the series in a variety of channels, including online promos, TV spots in various European markets, special Sprite packaging in those same selected markets, and live events featuring Vogel in some countries.

Through Facebook Connect, which lets viewers log into their Facebook accounts while on other Web sites, fans can post comments about the events of the episodes and share both the videos and the responses with their friends. A button on top of the video player will let them post their comments directly to their Facebook news feeds.

“With this show, Sprite shifts from creating the perfect branded content to content that perfects the brand,” Coca-Cola head of European digital marketing Stafford Green said in a release. “Instead of repeating single messages in traditional media, Sprite supports these new experiences and deep storytelling to communicate our core brand values over time. It’s a fresh advertising model, and everyone wins: the artist, the brands and especially the audience—getting free on-demand, truly interactive content without commercial interruption.”

They also get to have a voice in how Katie’s adventures proceed. At certain points in the storyline, the producers will also solicit a vote from viewers about the events they’re watching on YouTube. At that point, a prompt will appear on screen and the vote results, once tabulated, will also be fed back to viewers’ Facebook feeds. If the YouTube video is embedded in another site such as a social network profile or a personal blog page, that vote application will still appear—reportedly a first for a YouTube clip, which has disabled those apps in previous embedded videos.

It’s also a first to have Google-owned YouTube integrating this tightly with a third-party social network. In the past, YouTube has tried to keep the social interaction surrounding the content it hosts within its own comment or response areas. The video aggregator’s policy has been that clicks on its site should connect to other videos or to sponsors.

“This interaction between YouTube and Facebook is the first of its kind,” said Benjamin Faes, head of YouTube and display for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, in a statement. “At any time during ‘Green Eyed World,’ viewers can comment or vote, creating a live dialogue between themselves, their friends and the hero.”

Linking any online campaign to social networks may be particularly productive in European markets. A February 2009 report from comScore World Metric found that 74.6% of European Internet users 15 and older who went online in December 2008 visited a social networking site. Social-network penetration in the U.K. was the highest in Europe, with almost 80% of Web users logging into a social net that month.

At press time, the prequel Episode Zero has gotten almost 60,000 views on YouTube, along with 1,690 votes on whether viewers liked what they heard of her music (85% did), and 450 comments. The YouTube page also includes directions for following Katie on Twitter and promises downloadable iPhone and mobile apps for viewing the episodes once they launch officially in early May.

That May broadcast of Episode One will also see the “Green Eyed World” YouTube home page made over for four languages other than English: Spanish, French, Italian and German.