Schupp Company Blog

All-Time Backfire?

Friday, February 26th, 2010

All Sprite wanted to do was harbor a little goodwill in the African-American community. Award a scholarship. Throw a freaking badass show with cool musical guests that featured some of the top stepping talent from colleges across the country. It was not only the perfect opportunity to appeal to their target consumer; it was the perfect chance to create a ton of viable online content (i.e. The Step Off could be a sweet multi-channel promotion with tons of legs.)

Stop. Rewind. Do you even know what stepping is? I’ve seen it live once in my life, and it’s pretty amazing.  I would never attempt even trying this because: a) I have negative rhythm, and b) I would walk away looking like I got in a slap fight with a ninja.

Most commonly found in the houses of historically African American fraternities and sororities, it draws inspiration from a ton of different places including traditional African foot dances and popular R&B groups like the Temptations and The Four Tops. Wiki defines stepping as a form of percussive dance in which the participant’s entire body is used as an instrument to produce complex rhythms and sounds through a mixture of footsteps, spoken word and handclaps.

Ok. Now that we’re all up to speed on stepping, let’s return to Sprite.

The campaign was called The Sprite Step Off. To be eligible you have to have at least three steppers from the same chapter and school, one team per chapter.  You must be 18 or over. Then there are tons of rules about what you can and can’t do and can and can’t wear. Oh, and you have to qualify in a regional qualifying round. Capiche?

The top three finishers win scholarships. Sprite wins a little piece of the hearts and minds of their consumers. Wonderful. On paper it sounds like the perfect promotion.

That was until the ladies of Zeta Tau Alpha, Epsilon chapter stepped on stage during the finals last week and stepped away with the title.

Notice anything different about this particular sorority? It’s not the sunglasses. If Captain Obvious said, ”They’re white.” You would be correct. These chicks rocked the place. The crowd loved them (can you hear the commentary of the guys who recorded the performance? They were loving it.) Who cares if they’re white?

Apparently, lots of people do.

The Sprite Facebook page has been blowing up over the past week with some colorful remarks regarding the winners. Comments run the gambit – from racial to technical critiques of the ladies’ performance.  It’s a PR NIGHTMARE for Sprite.

In an interesting turn of events, Sprite posted the following statement yesterday on the official The Step Off site. Apparently, they felt they needed to “resolve” something.

“After the competition, we conducted a post-competition review and discovered a scoring discrepancy. There is no conclusive interpretation, nor definitive resolution for the discrepancy.

Sprite is committed to upholding the honesty and integrity of the competition. Because the scoring discrepancy cannot be resolved and due to the extremely narrow margin between the first and second place winning sororities, we believe that the appropriate course of action is to name both Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., Tau Chapter and Zeta Tau Alpha, Epsilon Chapter, co-first place winners of the Sprite Step Off. Accordingly, we will increase Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., Tau Chapter’s scholarship prize to $100,000, consistent with first prize winnings.

Sprite Step Off was created for the primary purpose of awarding scholarships and supporting talented college students in their quest for higher education.”

Hmmm…if that isn’t a make good, I don’t know what is. Thoughts? Does Sprite think that this band-aid is going to fix this? Is awarding a second “winner” really going to appease anyone? Do I even need to mention that Zeta Tau Alpha was the only white sorority in the competition? I didn’t, did I?

Personally, I agree with The Step Off host Ryan Cameron – If you can step, YOU CAN STEP.  So, step off Zeta Tau. (Yeah … I’m not tough. I just blog like I am.)

Tags: Debacle, facebook, music videos, news, popular, Sorority, Sprite, Stepping, trends
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