Coca Cola asked us to launch a new variant of their Mother energy drink, called Mother Lemon Bite to blokes, aged 18-29. The brief required a launch platform that would resonate with the target audience, reinforce the brand’s creative idea: 'stupid amounts of energy' and use humour to drive talkability.We enlisted The Fully Sick Rapper, a digital native with an established online fan base and we challenged him to attempt to break the world record for the world’s longest freestyle rap. Having become a You Tube sensation following 7 months 'rapping' in medical isolation, he was the perfect choice.First, he leaked a video announcing the challenge and called on his fans to submit rhymes. Facebook became the central hub for consumer engagement in the lead up to the attempt, and on the day, bite sized hourly highlights were pushed out, along with personal rhymes and shout outs for key media. Complementing this, was the execution of a comprehensive blogger and media outreach strategy, to maximise exposure beyond social channels.Total reach of the campaign was over 4 million, exceeding the reach benchmark by 300%. Over 1 million people engaged with the campaign via social media channels alone.

Launch Mother Lemon Bite to the core audience of blokes, aged 18-29. Deliver against the following two criteria:- Dial up Mother’s potency credentials, using unexpected humour to dramatise its functional benefit - Create something mates will talk aboutIn-depth analysis was undertaken to understand the target audience, ensuring we created a campaign designed to harness the most powerful channels of influence. This research clearly demonstrated we were targeting an audience of young, digital natives, with 1 in 3 under 19. Their media consumption heavily over-indexed in online and social media, 70% higher than the average Australian.

The Fully Sick Rapper posted a video on YouTube and Facebook inviting his fans to suggest rhymes for his rap. Mother’s Facebook page became the campaign hub for these submissions and their YouTube channel hosted all video content. Consumers were driven to a Facebook app via a comprehensive editorial and blogger outreach program. The Fully Sick Rapper also recorded personal raps for several influential media personalities to engage them in the campaign early on.Thanks to the help of the fans (and a Mother Lemon Bite), he met the challenge, with a rap lasting nine hours and twenty minutes. During this time, hourly highlight videos were pushed out, plus edits of each personalised shout out were shared with fans to disseminate amongst their own network. The digital strategy was designed to ensure we delivered content to the fans that that was entertaining, bite sized and easily sharable.

Total reach of the campaign was over 4 million, exceeding the reach benchmark by 300%. Over 1 million people engaged with the campaign via social media channels alone. This was achieved via 32 pieces of targeted media and blogger coverage, views of 9 hourly highlight videos and the creation of 59 personalized shout outs, sent back to the fans for them to share.The campaign was the lead story on the homepage for The Sydney Morning Herald, The Brisbane Times, WA Today and The Age news sites; this alone delivered branded campaign content and a link to the Mother Lemon Bite Facebook tab to over one million people. The program delivered a cost per 1,000 impressions of $25 with Coca Cola using the campaign as an internal benchmarking case study for other markets around the globe.

Two insights shaped our thinking: - First, a new flavour of an existing energy drink is not news, so a big idea with inherent newsworthiness would be critical.

- Second, it was crucial we engaged our consumer where they were spending most of their time – online.Our idea: 1. Recruit a high profile digital native who would appeal to our target audience 2. Challenge him to attempt a world record; something with intrinsic news value and solid social currency3. Invite our audience to participate So we enlisted Christiaan Van Vuuren.. a.k.a the Fully Sick Rapper! In 2010 Christiaan spent 7 months in medical quarantine. To amuse his mates he posted raps on YouTube and quickly became a huge Internet sensation. We challenged him to attempt to break the world record for the longest continuous freestyle rap and made sure we capitalised on EVERY opportunity to generate press and drive social interaction.

Coca Cola asked us to launch a new variant of their Mother energy drink, Mother Lemon Bite. Increased competition for 'share of shelf' in key retail channels, plus ongoing aggressive competitor activity motivated the brand extension launch. The brief required the development of an innovative, creative launch platform, which would resonate with the target audience and reinforce the brand’s core creative idea: 'stupid amounts of energy'. The budget was minimal and as such, there was a critical need for a campaign idea that would maximize the potential for earned media.