Spice up your world with Sprite: The story of Filipinos’ love for all things spicy

Many Filipinos love spicy food, from sisig and Bicol express to spicy noodles and chicken wings with a kick. Pinoy spice aficionados almost always react the same way: gasping for breath and frantically waving a hand in front of the mouth, as if a little breeze might somehow make its way in and cool the flames within.

For Filipinos, a love of spicy food feels almost as instinctive as reaching for a cold, refreshing drink on a hot day. Put them together, and you have a perfect pairing. Take a bite of something spicy, then chase it with a cold drink. It’s not just a culinary combination; it’s a cultural phenomenon that inevitably became an opportunity.

Through its “Sprite Spicy” campaign, the soft drink brand celebrated the pleasure of spicy food—and the refreshing relief of washing it down with a cold glass of Sprite.

“We wanted Sprite to play a role beyond being another drink on the table and work its way to embedding the campaign into a cultural movement. The anghang reaction gave us a cultural territory that Sprite could genuinely participate in — from the heat and the reaction to that refreshing sip that completes the experience,” said Frenissa Lagman, Senior Director and Head of Marketing at Coca-Cola Philippines.

Just like the sequential bite-gasp-drink behavior we intuitively do when eating spicy food, Sprite followed a deliberate order for the campaign’s execution: from insight, to sound, to entertainment, to social participation, and finally to every Filipino’s table. Each step, however distinct, is still rooted in the same cultural truth of Filipinos’ love for spicy food, our natural reflex to heat, and reaching for a cold drink.

“It wasn’t a series of standalone executions; it was one Sprite and Spicy story that kept evolving and becoming more tangible,” Frenissa added.

The sound of spice

Taking notes from the “wooh” sound people make when fanning themselves and eating spicy food, and the resounding “ahh” after a refreshing sip of Sprite, the brand aimed to take that connection between food and sound and turn the refreshing moment into a catchy sonic cue that people could easily recognize and make their own.

For this, Sprite handpicked a boy group that has resonated with the brand: BGYO.

“We had already seen how naturally BGYO connected with the Sprite audience, so it made sense to collaborate with them again,” Frenissa explained.

The collaboration between BGYO and Sprite resulted in the snappy song “With a Sprite, With a Sprite” which turned Sprite’s fizz into an audio signature that’s recognizable, repeatable, and suitable for remixing across social content — serving as the audio background across all user-generated content.

Spicy social sensation

A television is a staple in Filipino households, with people tuned in all the time, particularly as families gather for lunch. This is why noontime shows are such a hit in the country — it’s part of our everyday culture. Tapping into this insight, Sprite held a special segment in a popular noontime show for an epic crossover. It featured one of the country’s most iconic actresses as an acting coach and three celebrities as contestants who delivered famous Pinoy movie monologues while actively fighting off the heat from spicy food, and capped the scene with a refreshing sip of Sprite to the beat of “With a Sprite, With a Sprite.” 

Diving deeper into this well-chosen collaboration, Frenissa explained, “The [noontime show] integration helped take the campaign from a digital conversation into mainstream entertainment. It made the anghang reaction even more relatable and recognizable, and that helped create a natural bridge into social participation through the #SpriteSpicy challenge. We leveraged the credibility of well-established actors and actresses to showcase theatrics further.”

Taking to social media, Sprite’s platform of choice was TikTok, where Gen Z is most active and trends thrive. The mechanics for the #SpriteSpicy Challenge were simple: take a bite of your favorite spicy food; act out your best anghang reaction; and refresh with Sprite and “With a Sprite, With a Sprite” by BGYO. 

“TikTok was a natural platform for us because the campaign is really about participation. Consumers turn to TikTok for humor, entertainment, and discoveries. The theatrics of anghang are something Filipinos can instantly relate to and recreate, so TikTok gave people a space to put their own personality and humor into that experience,” Frenissa shared.

Celebrities such as Julia Barretto, Lella Ford, and Marco Masa kicked off the trend, making it viral and encouraging others to join the hot fun.

Bring the heat on

After building up the momentum from the sound by BGYO, the drama from the noontime show segment, and the social media participation, Sprite is taking people’s taste buds to a physical destination and letting them experience the Sprite and Spicy pairing firsthand: taking the campaign from storytelling to actual tasting.

The last leg of the Sprite Spicy campaign brought the heat to the table — literally. Sprite partnered with restaurant Your Local and Chef Patrick Go, and showed off a limited-edition menu of curated spicy dishes and drinks, each paired with Sprite. 

Items from the menu included Spiced Salted Egg Hummus, Spicy Beef Lechon Toast, Sili-Mansi Udon, and Chicken Hoy. And a variety of Sprite concoctions were specially created for the partnership, including Sprite + Spicy Peach, Sprite + Matcha, Sprite + Earl Grey Tea, and Sprite + Lychee.

Frenissa added: “One of the crowd favorites was the Sili-Mansi Udon as it’s close to the hearts of Filipinos, as it resembles our favorite instant noodles with a spicy kick and well-loved chicharon. The Spicy Beef Lechon Toast remains as Your Local’s best sellers, leveling it up with the spicy aioli.”

“We also wanted to push Sprite beyond its usual serve, so we experimented with combinations like Earl Grey Tea, Matcha, Lychee and Spicy Peach to show how versatile and refreshing Sprite can be.”

Spice up your world

The Sprite Spicy campaign tells a clear story of love between Filipinos and spicy food. From our innate preference for spice; to the new sonic cue by BGYO; to the drama and theatrics of enjoying spice in a noontime show; to sharing our love for spicy food on social media; and finally to experiencing it first-hand with specially made dishes and drinks, the campaign certainly hit a red-hot success rate. It gave people something to feel, then something to do, and finally, somewhere to go, turning a cultural insight into a full sensory experience, and a campaign into a celebration of love for spicy food.

Feel the heat for yourself. Grab your favorite spicy food and enjoy it with an ice-cold Sprite for a refreshing experience. Learn more on coca-cola.com/ph/en/brands/sprite.

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