• by Shankar Gupta , November 7, 2005

In a continuation of its partnership with the Coca-Cola Co.'s Sprite, MSN has created another teen-oriented branded entertainment site for the soft-drink maker.

At the site, TheRefreshingWall.msn.com, users can navigate through a virtual city and create graffiti designs using pre-designed stencils and backgrounds, and view the designs other users have created.

"The Wall," which launched late last week, is designed to create an experience that will engage youngsters. "Experiences on the Web--they can't be passive--they need to be active, particularly when you're looking at the teen audience," said Gayle Troberman, MSN's head of branded entertainment. "That's very much at the heart of what the Wall is."

In addition to moving around the virtual city's 25 locations--including a water tower, a billboard, a back alley dumpster, and a construction worker's arm--users can view a gallery by well-known graffiti artists. The site launched with a biography of a tagger who goes by the name "Craola." There's also a downloadable component to the promotion--a screensaver that displays, in real time, the newest graffiti designs that users of the site are creating.

Similar graffiti-based entertainment has come under fire by urban advocacy groups--"Mark Echo's Getting Up: Contents Under Pressure," a video game about a tagger named Trane making his way through a fictional city, was lambasted for glorifying defacement of property by groups like Keep America Beautiful and the National Council to Prevent Delinquency.

MSN Branded Entertainment and Experiences Manager Cameron Death said that the company hoped to avoid any similar controversy. "There's an element of tongue-in-cheek to it," he said. "It's not a let's find a wall and deface it; it's let's find cool and interesting places in the virtual city that then allow us to express ourselves."

The site continues a promotional deal between Sprite and MSN that kicked off with a music site dubbed "The Scenario," which featured Sprite's action figure-esque pitchman, Miles Thirst, and a host of popular DJs posting their playlists for download. According to Troberman, that site met with much success, becoming "one of the most popular destinations on MSN for teens," although no traffic numbers were disclosed.

The site will be promoted through the already trafficked Scenario Web site, as well as ads throughout the MSN network targeted at teen audiences and headlines on the MSN portal front page.

The site was created in partnership between MSN's Branded Entertainment team and Sprite's interactive agency, Mediavest, headed up by Scott Wick. Wick and Mediavest were also responsible for the Scenario.