| EVENT REPORT 10.05.09 5:09 PM |
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Coca-Cola Hosts Olympics Blowout in Chicago—on Day City Loses Bid
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 | Coca-Cola's "Celebrate the Spirit" event
Photo: Courtesy of Coca-Cola |
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FROM CHICAGO
"Here's to finding parking in Chicago in 2016," said one toasting guest at Friday night's "Celebrate the Spirit" event. Hosted by Coca-Cola, the cocktail party drew approximately 1,000 guests to the tented rooftop of the Harris Theater, which was decked with brand activations for the soft drink—as well as a few Olympics-ring props and other reminders of the games that Chicago won't be hosting in 2016, as locals had learned earlier that day.
Clare Brunnert, commercial channel manager for Coca-Cola's central region, said the company didn't view hosting an event on the big announcement day as particularly risky, since the party was intended as a celebration of the Games in general, and not just of Chicago's bid. "Coca-Cola has been associated with the Olympic Games since 1928, longer than any other corporate sponsor," she said. "We support the Olympic Games no matter which city or nation hosts the event, and the goal for [Friday's gathering] was really to celebrate the Olympic movement, our strong support of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, and Coca-Cola's six pack of athletes."
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Coca-Cola |
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| EVENT REPORT 10.01.09 1:14 PM |
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Diet Coke Emphasizes the Diet With Food-Focused Pop-Up
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 | Diet Coke's brand ambassadors ushering guests into the pop-up
Photo: Jessica Torossian for BizBash |
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When mulling over appropriate food pairings, they're most often for wine, beer, or cocktails—not soft drinks. But as part of its new "Eat Tastefully" campaign, Diet Coke is focusing on healthy food to eat with its ubiquitous carbonated beverage and has built a pop-up kitchen at 3 West 57th Street that is open 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. through Sunday.
Anyone who watches Top Chef is probably already acquainted with the new campaign. Series judge and celebrity chef Tom Colicchio is the new Diet Coke poster boy, and his commercials have run repeatedly throughout the reality competition's current season. To complement the advertising campaign, Diet Coke global brand director William White conceptualized a pop-up kitchen to give consumers in New York a taste of the kinds of foods the brand sees fitting well with its drink.
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Coca-Cola, Diet Coke, Tom Colicchio, Pop-Ups |
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| EVENT REPORT 07.21.09 4:38 PM |
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Olympics-Theme Gala Fetes 25th Anniversary of 1984 L.A. Games
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FROM LOS ANGELES
It was a grand 1980s theme party—but not the kind with sky-high bangs, legwarmers, and jelly bracelets. On Saturday night, the Coliseum was the backdrop for a gala commemorating the 25th anniversary of the 1984 Olympic Games, which were held in Los Angeles for 16 days that summer, when the U.S.A. led all nations with 174 medals, including 83 golds.
The Southern California Committee for the Olympic Games and the Los Angeles Sports Council, spearheaded by David Simon, president of both groups, cosponsored the event. David Wolper, the producer of the 1984 Games' opening and closing ceremonies, created the show, and Mark Flaisher produced it. Sportscasters Keith Jackson and Jim Lampley served as M.C.s for the event, and Warren Tach was the technical director. "[Wolper] asked me to produce the show on his behalf, which was a huge honor," said Flaisher, who only had a few weeks to put the project together.
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Olympic Games, Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Southern California Committee for the Olympic Games, Los Angeles Sports Council, U.S.C. |
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| BEST OF 2008 11.24.08 8:00 AM |
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Slow Fizz
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 | | Kevin Tressler |
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To think of the estimated $70 to $75 million Coca-Cola paid to sponsor the 2008 Olympics in Beijing as a modest sum, one only needs to imagine how much the company spent on advertising and promotions. The games marked Coke’s largest Olympic effort in its 80-year history and demanded almost a decade of planning. Leading those preparations was Coca-Cola’s director of worldwide sports and entertainment marketing, Kevin Tressler, who worked on projects like the Olympic torch relay, emblazoning soda cans across the world with a Mandarin logo, and building a 40,000-square-foot pavilion on the Olympic Green.
Coca-Cola started focusing on the Chinese market just hours after Beijing was chosen as the host city in 2000. How did the company approach such a long-term campaign?
When we look at a host country of a global event, whether it’s the FIFA World Cup or the Olympics, there are different phases that the country goes through. There’s the celebration, because there’s so much national pride involved with your country being chosen to host. Then that country goes through changes. New stadiums are built, and the people rally around how they’re going to welcome the world. This whole phase we could loosely call “anticipation.” Once the torch relay begins, from the host country’s perspective, the games begin. It’s a journey full of emotion and pride. Each of these phases or “moments,” as we call them, have specific consumer insights, feelings, and emotions that we leverage to amplify our brand message.
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Coca-Cola, 2008 Beijing Olympics |
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| EVENT REPORT 08.11.08 5:54 PM |
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Coca-Cola Opens Giant Olympic Exhibits for Beijing Guests
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 | The "Shuang Experience Center"
Photo: Eric Powell for BizBash |
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With an estimated bid of $70 to $75 million to be a four-year Olympic partner (plus an undisclosed marketing budget), Coca-Cola is all over Beijing’s 2008 Summer Games. Hoping to make the most of the big push, Coke opened its Olympic headquarters, “The Shuang Experience,” to the public Saturday morning.
The experience marks the culmination of the company’s two-year effort in the Chinese market using the Mandarin term “Shuang.” Said to mean “complete physical, emotional and spiritual refreshment,” the expression has worked its way into Chinese vernacular to describe something both literally and figuratively cool.
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2008 Beijing Olympics, Coca-Cola |
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| EVENT REPORT 06.05.08 1:12 PM |
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Apollo Revisits Supper Club Format, Hides Sponsor Logos in Artwork
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 | Hall of Fame inductee Smokey Robinson
Photo: Jessica Torossian for BizBash |
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The Apollo Theater Foundation seems to have no problem drawing numbers for its big annual fund-raiser—more than 1,000 people turned up at the historic Harlem theater for its spring benefit on Monday, and the not-for-profit raised an estimated $1.2 million. And while a crowd that large can squeeze into the Apollo Theater, making room for all those people in an adjacent tent for the after-party was more of a challenge.
Last year, the interior of the after-party tent was modeled after 1940s supper clubs, and this year, the event's designer, Scott Tucker of ISC Design Concepts, worked with a similar format, albeit leaving plenty of room for guests to move around. Keeping the palette simple, bronze drapes hid most of the tent's architectural components, while white furnishings and modest decor gave the illusion of space.
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Apollo Theater Foundation, Time Warner, American Airlines, Belvedere Vodka, Coca-Cola, Empire BlueCross BlueShield, Hearst Corporation, Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom LLP & Affiliates, TV One, Verizon, W New York |
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| EVENT REPORT 03.06.08 1:03 PM |
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Bailey House Packs Auction With Record Number of Guests
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 | M.C. Simon Doonan
Photo: Jessica Torossian for BizBash |
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To build attendance and revenue for its yearly auction and party, Bailey House relies on the pro bono efforts of its colorful board and sponsors, and their work to increase awareness of last Thursday night's 20th installment brought in a record 1,000 guests, ranging from New Yorkers like ABC's Bill Weir and Bill Ritter to former Project Runway contestants Daniel Vosovic and Kara Janx to philanthropic tourists. Bailey House's events and volunteer coordinator, April McKenzie-Griswold, worked on the event with help from committee co-chairs Jeffrey W. Schneider and Jeffery Provero.
Building on last year’s marketing campaign, the nonprofit added more kiosk ads and even ran a TV spot featuring hosts Jonathan Adler, John Bartlett, Simon Doonan, and Tim Gunn imploring people to attend in the weeks leading up to the auction. For the event's PR team, the strategic marketing efforts paid off, their effectiveness clear from the different types of guests in attendance. “Two women from out of town were sitting in a cab when they saw one of the ads,” said PMC Inc.’s Amy Krakow. “One of them had lost a brother to AIDS, so they bought tickets. It's a wonderful way to feel attached to the cause.”
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Bailey House, Corzo, Coca-Cola, Solgar, In Style Magazine, Beaulieu Vineyard |
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| NEWS 01.24.08 5:32 PM |
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Coca-Cola Aims for China Domination With Towering Digital Bottle
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 | Coca-Cola's bottle in Beijing
Photo: Courtesy of Coca-Cola China Beverages Ltd. |
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In a campaign to become the most popular beverage in China, Coca-Cola China debuted a high-tech five-story version of its iconic contoured bottle in Beijing on New Year's Eve, in a setting similar to New York's ball drop. Advertising Age is reporting today that "the world's largest graphic bottle" is the soft-drink company's latest tactic "in a series of spectacular promotional events" tied to the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. (Coca-Cola China is the Olympics' worldwide partner.)
Unveiled during the televised Coca-Cola New Year Celebration Countdown Party, the 50-foot bottle weighs 20 tons and features more than 330,000 LED screens, all of which digitally depict "uplifting messages of happiness, love, optimism, and hope," according to a press release. The event and the bottle were meant to build anticipation for the Olympics while reinforcing Coca-Cola's relationship to one of China's most eagerly anticipated events.
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Coca-Cola |
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