Sprite Commercial !

Have you seen the new Sprite Commercial for Asia yet? Well last week was when the commercial was filmed in LA. Really cool collaboration going on; we have Jay Chou and Kobe Bryant working together. Let’s take a look at the commercial:

So for those who do not know who Jay Chou is, he is a very popular singer, music composer, and actor from Taiwan. But for those who have watched movie "The Green Hornet” will probably remember him as Kato. He was the personal mechanic and martial arts expert in the movie.

I think this is a very cool collaboration because it brings different cultures together. I've always listened to Jay Chou's music and watch his films, but I didn’t know he was into basketball though. I never really read or heard anything about him even being interested in basketball. The two didn’t just collaborate for a commercial; Kobe is also featured in Jay Chou’s new single. In the making of the music video, it is quite hilarious to see the mini petite Jay Chou compared to the huge Kobe Bryant. Jay Chou kept getting swatted left and right every time he tries to put a shot. However, the skateboarding to dunk scene was a little silly though. This is the parts of the new single and all the scenes from shooting the commercial:

As for Kobe, he is very popular is Asia. He has a lot of fans there. Kobe was in Asia during the Olympics in 2008 at Beijing. He spent his 30^th birthday there. And many fans were there to cheer for him during exhibition games and such. Here’s Kobe cutting his cake that year =)

In 2009 during the NBA off season, he toured all over Asia. He held basketball camps and was just playing basketball with the locals at local playgrounds. He was also giving away free Kobe shoes to a lot of people. He even went to the Hong Kong Disneyland during his stay. 

Although it is cool to see a special commercial like this, there is still something weird about it. Sprite used to have a contract with Kobe back in the days. It wasn’t until about 2003 where Kobe was stuck with a court case regarding sexual assault in Colorado. Shortly after that happened, Sprite decided to use a different athlete to promote their product. They went with LeBron James at the time, shortly after he came into the league. Now after years since the court case, Kobe’s public image is restored already. So the Coca Cola company probably finally got over the old news and decided to use Kobe to promote their product Sprite again and this time along with Jay Chou, since this is pretty much being broadcast all over Asia. And the company knows that Asia loves their local artist Jay Chou and the fans in Asia love to watch Kobe. Therefore, piecing them together would be a great way to advertise and market. See what winning more championships can do, it brings up the popularity of an athlete even more, and a good way for companies to use them as a marketing tool.