Coca-Cola Co.'s Sprite activated its sponsorship of the National Basketball Association during All Star Weekend by running a mobile initiative targeting attendees of the Slam Dunk Contest and viewers of the TNT television broadcast.

The soft drink brand partnered with interactive television and mobile marketing company Telescope Inc. and used its SMS Connect mobile marketing platform. The in-venue and on-air calls-to-action asked attendees and viewers to text a keyword assigned to each Slam Dunk Contest participant to a short code to vote for the best dunker.

?TV plays an important role in changing consumer behavior, especially encouraging adoption of new technologies,? said Ori Nakar, chief technology officer of Telescope, Los Angeles. ?American Idol got many people to use SMS?the next phase of TV changing our behavior is the integration of social media.

?Subscriber numbers for text loyalty clubs have grown from a few hundred to a few thousand and some clients have hundreds of thousands of people on their mobile list,? he said. ?Our TV clients such as Turner and the NBA want to be creative and do different things than everyone else, so we had to keep adjusting our template or building campaigns from scratch.

?Now we let brands create their own messaging flow.?

Telescope provides cross-media interactive services that help clients connect with new customers, target new revenue streams and gain insight from their audience.

In addition to the NBA, the company has managed campaigns for clients such as the National Hockey League, American Idol, America?s Got Talent, So You Think You Can Dance, The Price Is Right and Deal or No Deal.

Sprite taps SMS
As the title sponsor of the NBA Slam Dunk Contest, Sprite wanted to make a splash.

Each participant in the Slam Dunk Contest was assigned a one-letter keyword.

For example, the Los Angeles Clippers? Black Griffin, who went on to win the contest, was assigned the letter A.

Mobile calls-to-action were broadcast via in-venue digital signage and along the bottom of the TV screen asking fans to text their favorite player?s keyword to the vanity short code 38657 (DUNKS).

Sprite branding was featured next to the call-to-action banner.

The NBA Slam Dunk initiative is one of the more elaborate campaigns that Telescope has run on SMS Connect, Mr. Nakar said.

The campaign was managed on a hybrid model letting the NBA manage some components of the campaign as it monitored the real-time results and data on a dashboard.

?The capacity is huge for the NBA, and it was a time-critical promotion taking place in a very short window where there were several people that dunk and people voted for them by texting in,? Mr. Nakar said. ?Right after the dunking is completed the results are announced.

?The hybrid model was a key change responding to what we sense in the market, letting the NBA and Turner choose what aspects they wanted to manage,? he said. ?They want to text them back something that is relevant to reduce their churn.

?To take full advantage of the power of mobile in general and particularly SMS, the timeliness of it is critical in driving behavior.?

Sprite wanted to activate its NBA sponsorship and create as much exposure for its brand as possible.

Sprite, through its agency T3, decided to sponsor the mobile interactive elements.

When fans voted for their favorite dunker via SMS, received a text-message reply back asking if they wanted to get a call back from the Miami Heat?s LeBron James.

Those who replied yes were sent an audio clip of Mr. James promoting Sprite and other NBA initiatives.

?To sponsor the NBA Slam Dunk content and include the voice of LeBron James, Sprite spent a lot of money,? Mr. Nakar said. ?It wanted to get as much out of the sponsorship as possible, and the mobile call-back feature was a great way to activate it.

?The participation rate has grown dramatically?we saw a huge conversion rate of people texting in to get a call back from LeBron,? he said.

Sprite is also promoting mobile rewards and extending its mobile initiatives featuring LeBron James. Its Web site asks visitors to text SPARK to 777483 to "hear from LeBron how he can refresh your game with autographed swag."

The Sprite/NBA/TNT campaign also had a social-media element to it. Fans were asked to check-in at NBA Turnstile on Facebook.

A multichannel approach is almost a must-have for every campaign that launches, per Telescope.

?The ability to consolidate all of that data and get unified consumer profiles is extremely important to our clients,? Mr. Nakar said.

?All of those pieces coming together with the NBA Slam Dunk SMS and Facebook initiatives enables a personalized, more relevant way for the brand to communicate with you,? he said.

Final Take
2011 NBA Sprite Slam Dunk Contest