Coca-Cola once again shows its leadership in leveraging mobile to build excitement around a live event sponsorship with a promotion for the upcoming American Music Awards that spans the mobile Web and SMS.

The effort targets teens with the opportunity to help produce the official track for the Coca-Cola Red Carpet LIVE! Digital Pre-Show, which will stream online for three hours before the American Music Awards air on Sunday, Nov. 24. Teens will be able to vote for their favorite musical sounds from a mobile device as well as to text a keyword to short code for a chance to win a trip to Los Angeles.

?Coca-Cola partners with the American Music Awards to connect teens to music, one of their key passion points,? said Jessica Frankel, assistant brand manager for teens at Coca-Cola, Atlanta. ?Since mobile is teens? key communication method, the link is a natural fit.

?Mobile is at the core of our efforts to engage teens,? she said. ?We know how hard it is to get teens attention and we want to make sure that what we offer them is cool, exciting sharable content.

?We consistently develop not only mobile-enabled, but mobile-led programs, as teens are practically attached to their mobile phones. This is also seen through our larger 2013 teen initiative, the AHH Effect ? a digital-first, mobile-led effort intended to express the multi-dimensional feeling of drinking a Coke with snackable content that teens can easily dip-in and dip-out of.?

Musical interlude
Coca-Cola has repeatedly turned to mobile over the past couple of years to help it activate various big event sponsorships, including campaigns for American Idol, NCAA March Madness, the Super Bowl and the Olympic Games.

For the American Music Awards promotion, teens can log onto www.theamas.com/coke from a mobile or desktop device to listen to several instrumental segments for a song created by YouTube artist Kurt Huge Schneider.

Each week starting Sept. 19 and continuing through Oct. 31, teens can listen to three different segments and choose the one they like best.

At the end of this period, Mr. Schneider will compile the elements to create the Coca-Cola track to be performed live at the pre-show.

The mobile-optimized site includes a video with Mr. Schneider encouraging teens to come back to the site each week to vote for their favorite tracks.

To listen to a track, users rotate an icon shaped like a Coca-Cola bottle to control the volume and then press the play button to listen.

Users need to log in to Facebook to submit their vote and see what their friends are voting for.

Users can also click on an RSVP button to receive a weekly reminder to place their vote.

Quick experiences
The idea of a co-created track builds from American Music Awards themselves, which are handed out based on the opinions of people across the country.

Teens who participate in the selection process will be entered into a sweepstakes for a chance to win a trip to the American Music Awards.

The mobile strategy continues during the digital pre-show, when those streaming the show will be able to text COKERED to 26739 for a chance win a trip for two to visit Los Angeles on World AIDS Day and to attend the release party for the new compilation album Dance (RED), Saves Lives. Two winners will be chosen during the pre-show.

?Mobile is best geared toward quick experiences, as teens (and everyone else) are constantly sneaking a peak at their phones for a quick amount of time,? Ms. Frankel said. ?So, we?ve learned to keep the experiences short and sweet.

?We know that mobile is pretty much a teen's life line and many times their first screen,? she said. ?Leveraging mobile allows us to lean into this behavior, and short-attention span, to make an authentic and compelling connection with the brand.?

Final Take
Chantal Tode is associate editor on Mobile Marketer, New York