Sting, Remake The Boxer
PepsiCo
Issue 45 | December 2017
Agency
BBDO Pakistan
Creative Team
Regional Creative Director Ali Rez Creative Director & Strategic Planning Director Assam Khalid Creative Group Head Moiz Khan Senior Creative Manager Aamna Rahim Creative Manager Hamza Amjad Creative Director Hira Mohibullah Group Art Director Shahzaib Hussain Senior Visualiser Ahmad Zafar Art Director Haseeb Akram Graphic Designer Tariq Khan Content Writers Syeda Faryal Ali, Khairaza Khan
Production Team
Production House Lashari Films PR Agency Mint PR and Image Consultancy
Other Credits
Managing Director Faisal Durrani Business Director Jamayal Tanweer Account Director Ali Zaidi Head of Strategy Omer Azeem Account Managers Ayesha Akram, Ahmed Wohaib Account Executive Tazeen Asa'ad Community Managers Alize Munir, Aneera Fareed
Date
May 2017
Background
Sting was an energy drink with an image problem: it was being considered by consumers as a 'soft' drink. The brand needed to be seen as a serious energy drink. In addition to reaffirming Sting's credentials as an energy drink and driving sales, there was a secondary objective to grow the brand's presence in social media.
Idea
With an impeccable career of 31 wins and the title of world's youngest Olympic boxing medalist, UK boxing legend Amir Khan faced a setback after being defeated by Canelo Alvarez. The news claimed his career was over. At a time when nobody backed Khan, Sting set out to re-energise him and get him back in the ring.
Tapping into Khan's Pakistani heritage, Sting invited him to Pakistan and showcased an entire city as a gym and its people as coaches. #StingChallenge invited the residents of the city of Lahore to challenge and to train Khan.
After a short teaser, an online film showed Khan stepping up to the first of the challenges, doing parkour on the rooftops of the old Mughal city, training with local wrestlers, jumping over rickshaws, shadowboxing with clotheslines.
The film ended with a call to action: "Dare to challenge Amir Khan".
Every week Khan was set new challenges via Facebook and Twitter using local techniques (such as boxing to the tune of a traditional drum beat) and Khan met them head-on. In total he took on six challenges, each of which created more online content and invited further challenges.
Even former Pakistan cricket captain, Shoaib Malik, and MMA pioneer Bashir Ahmad issued challenges. The challenges were targeted towards 18-23 year olds, sports enthusiasts, energy drink fans.
Results
The campaign not only firmly re-established Sting as an energy drink, with a boost in credentials of 6 massive points, the online film accumulated 13 million views and was the fastest to reach 10 million in PepsiCo's history. Total campaign views were over 16 million. Total media impressions topped 100 million. In a complete knockout of the competition, sales increased by an incredible 30% during and following the campaign. Amir Khan returned into the boxing ring, as re-energised as a boxer as Sting was as a brand.
Our Thoughts
In the old days of TV advertising, all Amir Khan needed to do was stand in front of a camera, having been spritzed to look nicely sweaty, and take a long swig of Sting. It might have made an impression of sorts. Today, being a brand spokesperson is altogether more demanding. Especially when you invite Joe Public to take a hand in matters, suggesting (evil) ways of putting you through your paces.
By actively involving young sports-mad fans, the brand became a part of culture, rather than a bystander or a leech of it. And that's how it did more than make an impression, it had a real effect.