International Sports Marketing Sponsorship -Myassignmenthelp.Com

Question: Discuss About The International Sports Marketing Sponsorship? Answer: Introduction Coca cola has been always at its helm when it comes to advertising, the companys long association with the Olympics further propelled the company to come up with creative advertising. The campaign was focused on how coca cola and Olympics are bringing people close to each other. Coca cola came up with three brilliant advertisements reflecting great positive moments of life. The advertisement relished the long standing 80 years of association between Coca-Cola and the Olympics. It was definitely a sight to see, filled with emotions and lot of earlier achievements and historical footage; it sure was a great campaign. At the same time, Coca Cola also targeted the Chinese market and crafted advertisement for Chinese people (Soderman Dolles, 2008) Outdoor communication Coca-Colas outdoor campaign was reflective of its branding, the company came up with painting of bus shelters and painting on major streets, the painting symbolized bold and dark color of red and it was written Cool is about to arrive. The company launched the campaign in Beijing an year before the actual Olympics in August 2008; it was also successful in creating a good buzz in Beijing (Fullerton Merz, 2008) On pack communication The Beijing campaign was launched by the on pack communication, Coca Cola launched a new composite logo and a cool innovative bottle for Olympics. The new logo was designed keeping in mind a flying red kite intertwined with a background of clouds; it was based on the theme of showcasing China to the world. In addition to this innovative and limited edition bottle, the company also came up with a quirky design to target its young audience (Price, 2008) Online and interactive communication The campaign of Coca cola had an interactive arm to it as well through MyCoke.com, it brought Coca Cola and Olympics game in a fun filled light. Another interactive program by the name of Design the world a Coke allowed people to share their digital bottle with others.WE8 another online interactive arm of the campaign, was a collaboration amongst a number of progressive musicians who designed and created limited edition aluminum bottle designs and free, downloadable companion songs. A collaborative photo experience was also created by Coca Cola for the Olympics, 17 Million people contributed towards creation of this amazing photo Montage (Choi, 2008) Packaging and merchandise Special cans, pins and trading cards were created for the Olympics game. E-Bay was the official partner of Coca cola which helped the company in distributing the merchandise not only in China but all over the world. The special packaging and merchandizing was hugely successful exercise done by Coca Cola in the Beijing Olympics. Sales promotions A number of online contests were created as a part of promotion of the campaign; one of the earliest campaign Win a dream with the Star Team was hugely successful. Another contest was running in China where consumers had to enter unique codes to win exciting merchandize and few lucky winners would also get a chance to meet their favorite footballers. Another prominent campaign was the launch of Delicious Happiness as the Chinese characters of Coca-Cola literally translated to Delicious Happiness (Economy Segal, 2008) Public relations The entire campaign was built on the simple motto of building sustainability communities, the company was focused on initiatives that protect the environment, conserve resources and enhance the economic development of the communities in which the company is operating. All these points were part of PR campaign (Mol, 2010) Association of Coca cola with London Olympics 2012 The advertising strategy of London Olympics 2012 was entirely different from all the earlier editions. The company wanted to leverage the power of digital media and move past traditional media. The company curated a large number of online interactive digital campaigns for its audience for a better engagement and conversion ratio. Television advertising was an aid used by Coca Cola to increase the reach of its campaign which was based on the socially responsible objective of the company. Mark Robinson and Kate Perry were featured in an ad Move to Beat campaign in order to promote the sponsorship for the games. 4 short films were also created with time duration of 30-60 seconds and the campaign was aired in multiple countries. The basic agenda of the advertising strategy of Coca-Cola was to create content which teens could relate to and share based on relevancy. Coca cola also ran a couple of Print ads showcasing its recycling efforts, promoting healthy drinking habits, and the amount of People Company employs in the UK. The company also had to launch another campaign highlighting its health ad sustainability credentials as a step against its criticism for sponsoring London Olympics (Poynter MacRury, 2012) On pack communication The on pack communication was in sync with its earlier association with Olympics. Coca cola designed bottles for promotion of London Olympics which were designed on the theme of London Olympics and was based on bringing people closer and together. Online and interactive communication Coca-Colas objective behind sponsoring London Olympics was to bring younger people closer to the heart of Olympics games and thus wanted to use this opportunity in creating positive differences in the UK. The company wanted to create campaign revolving round the youth, inspiring them to lead active healthy lifestyle, and also to connect people with music. Teaming up with Mark Robinson and Katy B was with the sole aim of infusing games with music. The song composed by the singers was launched as the official theme song of the Olympics and it was released as single. A Mobile campaign where the youth could interact with athletes and artist won many awards for being the best integrated marketing campaign. Another campaign on Facebook by the name Track the beat gave young people to access and interacts with the campaign anytime, users were also given powers to collect different beats around the song of London Olympics and share it with their friends. Coca-Cola went in partnership with Sam sung and Android to further promote the spirit of music and game. All in all, the digital marketing campaign was a massive hit across London (Kim, 2013) Packaging and merchandise Like the earlier editions, this time as well coca cola launched exclusive merchandize to communicate the association with London Olympics 2012. 4 pins were produced exclusively for opening and closing ceremonies to get the attention of the consumers and also grab eyeballs for collecting the highly prized collectors items. Three more exclusive designs were created but were limited only to buy at Hyde Park and the Olympic park. A great initiative done by Coca-Cola was to handover all the profit it made from the merchandize to its charity Street games which helps to bring sport to 110,000 young people in some of the most deprived communities in the UK (Taylor, 2012) Sales promotions Company despite launching various promotional offers also came up with London 2012 Olympic Torch Relay to shine a light on the best of British youth and also encouraged people to get involved in the local communities. Coca cola gave chance to million to people to come and witness the grand saga of Olympics by answering simple questions based on its campaign, hugely successful in operation. Other promotion methods like offering unique codes, more quizzes on company, trivia and facts were presented to the youth to increase the engagement and involvement into the sport. Huge promotional displays and point of sale supports such as posters, shelf talkers, cooler clings, banners, and ballot boxes were also created to reinforce the promotional activities of Coca cola in tandem to the London 2012 Olympics. Coca cola also launched a unique campaign in association with McDonald around the world; the promotion ran in almost 65 countries. In the campaign a consumer would get 1 free glass of Coca cola after he collects and give 5 different colored glasses and puts it in the collector box. This was further promoted by creating a viral video, which was posted online and it drove good conversion metrics for Coca Cola (Sheridan, 2012) Public relations The Public release of Coca Cola was in sync with its CSR activity that how it is helping London in achieving the most sustainable games of all times. This was supported by using 100% recycled bottles, which were made from 22.5% of Plant products. This initiative was called as Plant Bottle Initiative; the aim of the campaign was to convert every soft drink recycled bottle back into a new one in duration of 6 weeks. The company also did a press release in which it detailed the step it is taking to reduce the carbon footprint in the UK 2008 Beijing Olympics was inclined more towards the usage of traditional tools of marketing for the promotion of its campaigns. A huge sum of money was spent in creating short films for the campaign, outdoor promotion, and TV advertisements and so on. While the company realized that traditional tools of marketing should be used just to create the awareness around the event, in order to bring the youth and people closer to the event, they have to come up number of digital interactive campaigns for London 2012 Olympics. It has been seen that in terms of consumer awareness about Coca Cola, London Olympics was more successful. Numbers of campaign were launched on Facebook and other media platforms, integrated mobile communication also played a huge hand in the success of the digital campaigns. Social responsibility Coca Cola took a pledge to keep its vending machine free of Hydro Flouro Carbons (HFC) in cooperation with the greenpeace and the United Nations Environment program. The goal of this coalition was to keep a tab on the global warming, and coca cola wanted to keep Beijing Olympics HFC free. A large number of refrigeration systems were also kept in the venues to reduce the effects of the greenhouse gases. While in the year 2012, coca cola was more focused on making its bottle 100% recycled and convert every bottle used in the stadium into a new bottle in duration of maximum 6 weeks. It also underwent through a lot of detailing in explaining to the world how it is further contributing positively towards the sustainability of the environment. It also made a press release to the general public, explaining to them how it is helping in reducing the global carbon foot print. Unique elements of Coca Cola London Olympic campaign An extremely innovative idea by Coca Cola which was initiated at the London Olympics 2012, Coca cola beat box was inspired by its Move to the beat campaign which basically resulted in creation of a ground breaking building in the Olympic park knows as the coca cola beat box. This unique building could be played as a beat box by the consumers and they could create their own beats using the coca cola merchandize. Increased social responsibility London 2012 was important for Coca Cola because of many reasons. It came up with 100% recyclable bottle based on the technology of Plant Bottle initiative. Under this the aim was to convert every single bottle into a new bottle in duration of 6 weeks. In addition to this, Coca-Cola used recycled uniforms and menu cards through the venue, thus contributing towards increased social responsibility. Innovative packaging Coca Cola has always been an innovator when it comes to creating absolutely brilliant designs for its bottles. The company repeated the same by creating never to be seen attractive design and packaging for its bottle. It created three exclusive pins, which were kept only at Hyde and Olympic park for the consumers. People were seen queued to grab a hand at those exclusive bottles placed at those locations. Targeting young people Coca Cola wanted to target the youth as part of its sponsorship with London Olympics 2012 and divert their interest towards healthy lifestyle habits and games. In order to do so, it came up with exclusive integrated mobile campaign which allowed the youth to interact with their favorite footballers. A number of campaigns on Facebook allowed the youth to connect any time with the campaign. Content was created by Coca Cola in sync with the interest of the Youth. References Choi, J. A. (2008). Coca-Cola China's Virtual Olympic Torch Relay programme at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games: adding interactivity to a traditional offline Olympic activation.International Journal of Sports Marketing and Sponsorship,9(4), 4-13. Economy, E. C., Segal, A. (2008). China's Olympic nightmare: What the games mean for Beijing's future.Foreign affairs, 47-56. Fullerton, S., Merz, G. R. (2008). The four domains of sports marketing: A conceptual framework.Sport Marketing Quarterly,17(2), 90. Kim, H. D. (2013). The 2012 London Olympics: Commercial partners, environmental sustainability, corporate social responsibility and outlining the implications.The International Journal of the History of Sport,30(18), 2197-2208. Mol, A. P. (2010). Sustainability as global attractor: the greening of the 2008 Beijing Olympics.Global Networks,10(4), 510-528. Poynter, G., MacRury, I. (Eds.). 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