A recent article in the local free newspaper Style Weekly tipped me off to a curious underground campaign focused at young people in Virginia. It's for a new energy drink called Syke (which is not currently available in stores), but is being hyped as an extreme beverage that is "a secret blend of awesomeness and chemically engineered ingredients to help you live life faster." But all is not right in the land of Syke, and Style reveals that the campaign is actually a creation of the Rescue Change Social Group, "which develops programs to get young people involved in healthier lifestyles". Indeed over the coming months Syke, which is sponsoring actual music concerts, will get revealed as a dangerous product and eventually the "company" that makes it will be publicly shamed as part of what is a multi-phase anti-smoking campaign aimed to get under teens radars by having Syke be a metaphorical stand-in for cigarettes. Will it work? Style is skeptical. I'm intrigued to see where it goes, but the challenge of connecting the dots for their audience does seem massive. What do you think, is Syke the future of social marketing to teens?Read the entire Style article HERE.
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2 comments:
Wow. What a crazy idea. It will be interesting to see how it plays out. I like the "secret blend of awesomeness and chemically engineered ingredients". Come to flavor country. NOW THAT'S LIVING!
OK, this thing has gotten way crazier. first they released Syke 9 (syke9.com) and now it has been seized (fake of course). I'm kinda interested to see what happens next. If this is the future of social marketing, then I can't wait to see what the next anti-drug commercials look like!
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