Dr Pepper taps online artists to boost its brand

With a mural contest at DeviantArt.com, the soda brand got some unique advertising and a community talking.

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When communicators think about socializing online, a few usual suspects pop up: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Tumblr. But for people plugged in to the online art community, another site, DeviantArt, with its 18 million registered users and 43 million unique visitors every month, is the go-to spot to post paintings, pencil sketches, digital pieces and the like.

That’s why Dr Pepper reached out to the site this year to partner up for a project.

“Dr Pepper knows that its consumers are gifted and talented, as such they looked to partner with a publisher who celebrates creative and gifted individuals,” said brand spokesman Richard Lyons. “After briefing DeviantArt on our brand, they came up with a program to engage their artists.”

That program? A mural contest that netted more than 2,100 entries over three weeks in August. Entrants were tasked with visually depicting how they drink Dr Pepper, with the winning entry going on a wall in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn for a month starting this week.

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