All publicity is good publicity? Sprite will soon find out.
Several outlets, including New York Press and Huffington Post, jumped on a story about a sexually charged Sprite commercial getting banned in Germany. Funny thing is, the commercial never aired. In fact, it was just a spec piece that wasn’t even approved, but its incredibly racy material zoomed through cyberspace faster than you can say drunk celebrity video.
The commercial was actually made by Brooklyn director Max Isaacson, who issued a statement to clear up the mess. Here are a few highlights: “This was not supposed to be taken seriously by anybody. They were made completely on spec, which was clearly stated on the YouTube pages on which the ads were primarily seen … there was no involvement from [Coca-Cola/Sprite].”
This isn’t the only racy commercial in recent months — just consider this legitimate gem from a coffee creamer company — but Isaacson’s work was an independent act that humorously left the beverage company’s PR team scrambling. Oh Internet how I love thee! Sprite naturally did everything it can to pull the offending commercial off YouTube, but we found a clip where its featured as editorial hence making it free of copyright violations. Be warned, this is bad, so hide the children.
Here it is, enjoy: