Explains Duke Creative Director, Gareth Cohen, “Worldwide there has been a perception amongst consumers that a ‘lite’ version of a soft drink is a watered-down, less sweet version of the original – this is why internationally, we saw the launch of Coke Zero and Pepsi Max. Locally the same appeared to be the case with Jive Lite, so we decided to relaunch the sugar-free variants with a fresh, bold new look that appeals to a younger market while pushing a message that it is definitely not watered-down.”
The Jive X branding features a white “X” depicting no sugar whilst the brightly coloured sweets that form the background are those that can traditionally be found at local corner cafés and allude to the sweetness and bold flavour of the product.
In addition to the rebrand, to further entrench this brand into Western Cape youth culture, a once-off collaboration with local streetwear brand BRAhSSE saw the creation of a unique limited-edition clothing range inspired by the soft drink. Over 1500 clothing items (which include board shorts, bucket hats and moon bags) were manufactured as part of a promotion and an online social auction. Says Cohen, “We briefed BRAhSSE to create a streetwear range inspired by the product but not overtly branded Jive. We ended up using deconstructed elements of the new Jive X campaign to form the basis of the line.”
In the first six weeks the online campaign had a reach of three million with 23 million impressions. More importantly, in the three months since Jive X launched there has been a 32% increase in sales.
Ends Cohen, “Despite being interrupted by Covid during the initial launch phase, the campaign has continued to gain momentum and demand for Jive X has certainly surpassed all predictions.”
