In 1990, Heavy D and the Boyz and Kid-N-Play followed in Blow’s footsteps with Sprite commercials of their own as part of the “I like the Sprite in you” campaign. The late ‘80s “I like the Sprite in you” was a standard jingle-driven campaign featuring young people, but by 1991, it had incorporated a jingle with a more hip-hop-inspired sound and more appearances of black actors. Sprite’s non-celebrity commercials took on a new look too.
“Without lymon it’s not happenin’ so sorry 7-Up,” he says at one point, using Sprite’s made-up word describing its flavor profile to call out its main competitor. One of Sprite’s first ventures into the “urban” market was a 1986 commercial featuring hip-hop artist Kurtis Blow rapping about the soda in a recording booth. “Sprite perceived the potential marketability of the cool emanating from hip-hop culture around the same time that Adidas made a deal with Run DMC,” Stoute wrote.
In his 2012 book The Tanning of America, marketing expert Steve Stoute explored Sprite’s marketing history. But in an attempt to up its “cool” factor and appeal to minority and youth markets, in the ‘80s the soda company began a relationship with hip-hop that has come to characterize it as a brand today - the unofficial “black people soda,” even if no executive would admit it. Following Sprite’s debut in 1961, its advertising primarily focused on the soda’s appeal as a mixer for alcohol like vodka and gin. Considering the history behind the soda, it checks out. It’s a sinister thought to entertain, as an ideally thoughtful consumer - that decades of targeted advertising could actually sway something as personal as what beverage I like to drink. Or is it because the company has poured millions of dollars into making sure that I, an African-American hip-hop and basketball fan, would give it my brand loyalty? Perhaps, maybe, possibly - who can say?
Is it because of some long-forgotten joyful association with it from my youth? Maybe. Is it because I just enjoy the taste? Perhaps. When I’m faced with the choice of beverage at a fast food soda dispenser, I always go for the lemon-lime option, and my No.
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