Sprite Launches Mobile Social Network

MEDIA POST -- June 7 -- When I hear about plans like Coke/Sprite's new branded mobile social network, Sprite Yard, I always imagine the pitch meetings that must have led up to them. It seems like the kind of idea that only delusional brand marketers and key executives in a corporate hierarchy could love. Only Coke could actually believe that people are so wedded to their Sprite brand, that we as consumers have such affection for it, that we would want to live in its world. People short-code in a PIN number and create profiles and avatars in a Sprite-sponsored world. Sprite is pretty much creating a media platform that will give away video mobisodes, ringtones and graphics, in addition to a platform for users to connect with one another.  If Sprite Yard is more about free content distribution than social interaction, then it has a chance of success -- but it depends entirely on how much of a media platform it wants to be. FULL ARTICLE @ MEDIA POST