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Olympics Coca-Cola Royal Wedding

Royal wedding drives Coca Cola USA to a flying start for London Olympics

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By The Drum Team, Editorial

May 18, 2011 | 3 min read

The American Coca Cola marketers have chosen their Olympic "eight-pack" of athletes way ahead of everyone else

Another factor: the eight athletes Coke has selected have big followings on Facebook and Twitter. In 2008, at the Beijing Olympics, Twitter was still in its infancy and Facebook had a mere 100 million users. Today the figure is over 500 million.

In addition to being medal contenders for Team USA , the athletes will also serve as Coca-Cola" Ambassadors of Active Living" to help encourage and inspire people to lead active, balanced lives.

Dina Gerson, director Olympic marketing for Coca-Cola North America, told Ad Age there were a number of reasons for the early launch , "We've had so much interest and excitement that we knew it was going to get out, so our team decided we should be in front of this one."

The athletes themselves wanted to begin talking about their Coca-Cola link. They have Facebook pages and Twitter accounts where their fans follow them . Gymnast Shawn Johnson quickly tweeted the news to her 84,000 followers.

So did women' s soccer player Alex Morgan and wrestler Henry Cejudo."They're excited about sharing the news . To bottle that excitement wouldn't be ideal," said Ms Gerson.

The other five US athletes are David Boudia (diving), Marlen Esparza (women's boxing), John Isner (tennis), Jessica Long (paralympic swimming), and David Oliver (hurdles).

Ms. Gerson said that Coca-Cola looked for diversity in sport, gender and ethnicity in putting together its team. Their public speaking ability, their story and their "potential to medal" were also ingredients.

Yet medal potential was not the most important thing, however. It's not even certain if all the athletes will actually compete at the games. In the past some have dropped out because of injury

"It's a risk, absolutely, but they're part of the Coca-Cola family, win, lose or draw," she said. "We looked at over 600 athletes and talked to everybody from the U.S. Olympic Committee to NBC to the International Olympic Committee. Our Olympics athletes are a powerful asset."

The athletes were in Boston this week for photo shoots. Their pictures will appear on packages, including an eight-pack of 90-calorie mini-cans and an eight-pack of 20-ounce bottles. They'll also be used for public relations and in-store marketing efforts beginning in the first half of next year.

Olympics Coca-Cola Royal Wedding

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