Sprites Big Fresh Bet
Self-Congratulatory LinkedIn Circle- Jerks, and the Death of Real Innovation in Big Brands
Funny · Reply · 1 reply 2 Another day, another “bold refresh” that has the industry patting itself on the back while the rest of us roll our eyes.
Sprite just unveiled “It’s That Fresh” … new global platform (whatever that means), refreshed identity, sonic logo, culture umbrella across 180 markets, heavy on music/streetwear/basketball/spicy food trends to “meet Gen Z where they are.” The Coca-Cola Company’s internal team + forpeople + WPP Open X, Zeno Group, Tuney, and Ear Candy all got involved. Quote from the VP: "gen Z defines cool themselves, so Sprite’s spotlighting the'freshest takes' and rule- breakers." Sounds great on paper. Execution? The feed is flooded with: - “Where is the NEW? ” - “It’s just soda” - “Brand refresh New identity ” - “Culture rich product photography and internet-y style cuts don’t equate to a fresh new identity” - “Strategy overbaked” - “Talking to themselves with this one lol. Same brand different manifesto” - “What changed? ” - “Confused! What Changed tbh!? ” - “I really believed all of this shit when I worked in advertising. lol.” - “Liquid diabetes with a fresh new look” - “But does it taste like the one out of a McDonald’s fountain? ” - “Justice for Turner Duckworth’s 2022 identity ” In a world where actual innovation gets drowned out by manifestos created by overpaid agencies, it’s refreshing (pun intended) to see the comments cut through the corporate BS. Sprite’s betting big on being embedded in culture rather than chasing it … yet the almost universal reaction is “we’ve seen this packaging glow-up before.” And here’s the real third-rail moment: the campaign leans hard on calling Sprite “iconic” (the return of the “iconic Lymon,” reintroducing the brand as “iconic refreshment,” etc.). If you have to proclaim through your own marketing voice and agency consultants that your brand is iconic … then it’s not. Full stop. Sprite is iconic: crisp lemon-lime, clear bottle, that unmistakable fizz … but by slapping the label on themselves in press releases and creative briefs, the dense MBA- level talent at Coca-Cola and these agencies are actively watering it down.
They’re turning earned cultural status into self-congratulatory corporate speak, diluting the very thing that made it special in the first place.
Even worse is the quiet self-own buried in the whole approach. When the current agency and internal teams have to go back to something that worked in the past and now label it “iconic,” they’re basically admitting they have no new ideas of their own. They’re not the team capable of creating the next real bold chapter for the brand; the best they can do is rehash previous giants’ work, tweak a few edges, add some flash filters, and pretend it’s something fresh. The outrage here is that nobody in the room seemed to clock this, or if they did, they stayed silent. But that’s exactly how these bureaucracies work: protect the station, avoid risk, crank out mediocrity, and hope no one calls the bluff.
It won’t take any delay to spot the LinkedIn posts from Coca-Cola and agency leadership rolling in soon... proud announcements, mutual congratulations, and high-fives from low-level employees groveling for their bosses' attention, hoping that replying to leadership posts will somehow boost their career path so they can keep cranking out more mediocre work... just at a higher pay grade...completely oblivious to how real consumers and the public see it: a circle-jerk, wasted money, gaslighting, and logo tweaks disguised as brand innovation. I don’t have inside info, but I’d bet my last lemon-lime that this took well over a year to conceive, navigate 14 levels of approval, strip out anything remotely cool or risky, and land on the milquetoast we see today: fake flash photography, slightly rounder edges on a couple letters, a tweaked gradient on the lime and lemon. That’s it.
Look, I don’t blame the creatives on this. I’d bet the farm that when the brief came down: “we need something new, fresh, viral, pop, all the buzzwords” - a couple agency teams brought their A-game: 4 bold, barrier-pushing concepts that could’ve actually moved the needle. (and 8 mediocre ones to make the deck larger and ensure every agency had equal billing in front of the client). But the real gatekeepers? Those mediocre mid-level managers who actually greenlight the work. They picked from the mediocre choices. They picked the safe, hard- flash 1980s-Vogue/TikTok-filter look because it felt familiar, like the same Reels they scroll at lunch. These are the people making the calls, not the creatives, not the visionaries. They’re the ones who’ve been using Canva to slap together PowerPoint decks in endless Atlanta HQ meetings, and this watered-down result is exactly what happens when risk-averse corporate middle management is in charge instead of empowering the people who actually know how to push a brand forward.
It’s baffling how a brand this massive, with unlimited resources, still can’t hire (or empower) real creative/genius/culture-barrier-breaking talent. Instead, the system rewards the highest level of mediocrity... everyone playing defense to protect their station rather than pushing the brand forward. I’m not saying this with some abstract chip on my shoulder; I’m saying it because I lived it for years inside similar machines.
Is this a smart play to stay relevant in a saturated category, or peak “internal meeting energy” dressed up as disruption? Be honest … what’s your take? #marketing #branding #sprite #itsthatfresh #advertising #brandrefresh #genz #cocacola
This article was originally published by giovanni gallucci on LinkedIn or X. It is republished here in its original form, backdated to its original publish date.
