Placing a drink brand inside a gaming stream sounds simple. In practice, most attempts produce the same result: a logo in the corner, a scripted mention, an audience that's learned to ignore both. Fanta took a different approach. Instead of appearing alongside the content, the brand became the ritual at the center of it.
Eight challenges, two streamers, one ritual
The campaign centered on a dedicated Sea of Thieves live stream, hosted jointly by two of top gaming creators: Bladii and Graf. The format was simple: eight challenges, 90 minutes to complete them all, one sip of Fanta after each completed challenge.
The consumption moment wasn't a sponsored read. It was the payoff. Every completed challenge ended the same way: the streamer reached for a sip of Fanta. Firing a crew member from a cannon onto an enemy ship. Surviving combat scenarios. Completing timed objectives. The camera was on them, the chat was watching, and the drink was already part of the story.
Before the action started, each stream opened with a five-minute ASMR sequence. Close-up footage of Fanta being poured and fizzing. The quietest moment of the broadcast received the most deliberate product treatment.
Viewers weren't passive. Completing challenges unlocked reward codes distributed live. Two hundred codes per challenge, given to viewers watching in real time. They were watching to see what would happen next, not waiting for the ad to end.
Same ritual, 1.200 streamers, 500.000 viewers
The main stream with Bladii and Graf reached:
- 1,600+ concurrent viewers at peak
- 30,000 unique viewers
- 50,000 total views on the livestream
But then, we scaled the format. Using inStreamly technology, contextual Fanta creatives ran across 1,200 additional streamers, reaching over 500,000 viewers without repeating the main activation.
What the Brand Lift Study found
In the conducted Brand Lift Study on an independent panel of 500 viewers, the numbers showed that Fanta stayed with the audience for long:
- +9 pp top of mind awareness
- +16 pp ad recall
- +12 pp brand affinity
A +16 pp ad recall figure is unusual for an audience that mostly skip or actively block ads. The difference here was structural: the product appeared at the moment of maximum emotional engagement, not between moments.
Why it worked
The campaign didn't interrupt the stream. Fanta used the stream's existing rhythm: tension, attempt, payoff - and gave the brand a fixed place in that rhythm. The sip of Fanta wasn't inserted into the content, but became a conclusion of each challenge, earned by the streamers and watched by the audience.
That's a different relationship between a brand and a viewer than a pre-roll produces.
