Sprite + Tea: Insights & Positioning for a Limited-Edition Gen Z Brand
Client: The Coca-Cola Company / Sprite
Challenge: Insights Research + Brand Positioning
My role: Strategy Director
Tools: Qualitative research, Storytelling, Brand positioning
Markets: US
February 2025
New York, New York
Sprite + Tea: Insights & Positioning for a Limited-Edition Gen Z Brand
Challenge
Sprite has a strong history of limited-edition flavors that work, including Sprite Chill and Sprite Winter Spiced Cranberry. Sprite X Tea aimed to repeat the success of its predecessors.
Fans were already posting about mixing Sprite and tea, indicating a clear interest in the marketplace. The question was how to scale niche viral behavior into a durable brand platform. What sustainable role should it play in Gen Z culture?
Tea was seen as a relaxing, healing drink, something to enjoy when you want to take care of yourself. These findings unlocked positioning territory around relaxing moments in the day, while creating a problem. Sprite had few equities in the low-activity relaxation space. It was framed as an energizing drink, so what type of relaxation could it capture?
Gen Z: Definitions of Relaxation
When we asked our group when they felt most relaxed and responses clustered into four modes. We needed high-energy relaxation where Sprite met tea. The answer was focus, not rest.
Sprite was a high-energy drink, fizzy and tangy, so associating with low-energy relaxation such as chores or lying still was not where the brand could or should live? High-energy experiences, however, including creativity, sports, and natural escapes, were the sweet spots of Sprite X Tea belonging.
High energy + Zone-in: Play: Worthwhile activity without external pressure. The definition was very broad and included skincare, sports, and music.
High energy + Zone-out: Escapes: Special places like wellness centers, spa hotels, or a simple walk in nature.
Low energy + Zone-in: Chores: Bringing order. In an unstructured, chaotic world, cleaning and decluttering help us take back control of our space.
Low energy + Zone-out: Stillness: Outright relaxation. Sometimes staring at an empty wall is all we need when we want to disconnect.
On the “play” occasions, the brand role was clear: a facilitator inviting people to start their ritual.
An idea of the drink: imagining the taste
Exploring an unfamiliar food or drink without the physical product requires expectation-based prompts. Instead of giving respondents Sprite X Tea to try, we asked them to describe their expectations. One of them came up with the following:
“I think this would be similar to an Arnold Palmer, but with that lemon-lime twist and an addition of bubbles. The recipe would be 70 percent Sprite and 30 percent iced tea, so the Sprite is the main event.”
This idea became the beginning of the brand story, with legendary golfer Arnold Palmer as the inspiration for the marketing narrative, both to the beverage and the man.
Arnold Palmer holds mythical status in a sport that Gen Z has rediscovered and made their own.
“Golf looks calm, but you’re sweating, thinking, and low-key stressed the whole time. You want something cold with some edge to it.”
The Gen Z version of the game includes everyone, rather than the traditional image of middle-aged executives at a country club. It is an intriguing space for a brand connected with Black culture to participate in a broader cultural moment. Being in the conversation allows the brand to travel outside its intended category:
Nearly 1.5 million more people than the prepandemic average — 3.4 million total — played golf for the first time in 2023, with the highest level of participation among adults 18 to 34 (The National Golf Foundation).
Sprite quickly announced a partnership with Eastside Golf, a golf brand founded by two Black men, Earl Cooper and Olajuwon Ajanaku.
Highest-value relaxation was not rest, but flow
Conversations with fans helped refine the positioning.
The Strategy: Deep, energized focus on something personally meaningful. The positioning aimed directly at this belief. The brand should give people permission to immerse themselves wholeheartedly.
Flow-state consumption favored sipping over gulping, which directly informed the move to a resealable bottle rather than a typical can.
Do: Play, for example golf, the hero sport of focusing fully on fun with deep concentration.
See: An amber drink that recalls tea, while keeping Sprite as the main protagonist.
Hear: A consistent hip hop soundscape that anchors Sprite X Tea within the Sprite brand sound system.
Feel: Freedom to enter a state of flow and commit, without disruption, to an activity you enjoy.
The Results
What started as a curiosity product became a sensation that transcended its category. Sprite is now America’s No.3 soft drink, having surpassed Pepsi in sales volume, and constant Gen Z-friendly limited-time innovations are a major part of the brand’s success.