Sprite has always been committed to uplifting Black voices, since the launch of their Obey Your Thirst campaign in the 90s. We wanted to continue helping young Black creators realize their dreams. We work with young musicians, photographers, designers and other artists, and try to put them on the biggest stages we can find. Through our Commitment to Black Creators work, our objectives were to demonstrate support, inspire the future, and take action to create tangible change in the lives of our core audience.

We announced Sprite’s partnership with the Black Lives Matter movement during the BET Awards with films that talked about how Black Americans have been left out of the American dream. The films were made with photography from young Black artists in Atlanta. But with the 2020 elections coming up, we needed to further help realize the dreams of our audience. So we launched, Create Your Future – a voting initiative where we worked with young Black creators to make art pieces that expressed they were voting. The art pieces included apparel, a photography series and powerful digital illustrations. We then used the power of our platform and our network of friends to get their art in front of a world wide audience. This included a multi-city, high-impact OOH campaign, films during the BET Hip-Hop Awards, celebrity shoutouts on social, paid digital support and a takeover of Sprite’s social channels.

In 2020, racial injustices were brought to the forefront. Although America offers the promise of the American dream, it’s been clear that Black Americans have been left out of that dream. Our mission was to turn young Black creators’ dreams into a reality, starting with our “Dreams Realized” TVCs.

Ahead of the 2020 election, countless other brands focused on “the what”— messages encouraging people to get out and vote. So instead, we focused on the “why”—the personal reasons why voting is so important to our audience. In doing so, we gave six young Black artists an opportunity to express their reasons for voting through their art and then gave them a platform to inspire their peers nationwide.

In June of 2020, we announced our commitment to our community through a Black Lives Matter response. It included a celebration of young creators on Sprite’s social channels around Juneteenth, followed by the premiere of our “Dreams Realized” films during the BET Awards. The films were made with footage created by young Black creators from Atlanta.

In October of 2020, we announced our commitment to elevate Black voices ahead of one of the most important elections in recent history. We launched our #CreateYourFuture voting platform - a collection of artwork along with accompanying TV spots to amplify our creators' personal reasons for voting. These TV spots premiered during the BET Hip Hop Awards, one of hip-hop’s biggest moments on screen. We also tapped celebrity partners to help amplify the artwork in social and launched OOH billboards in NYC and ATL showcasing our creators’ artwork.

To date, our commitment to Black creators work has garnered 658.41 million+ total earned media impressions and earned 164 online and social media placements. More importantly, we hope that by uplifting their peers' voices, we inspired the next generation of change-makers to head to the polls and make their impact on the world.