VOLUME 3 Published by:
11 Coca-Cola Activates its Olympics Sponsorship with a Blend of Sports, Music and Crowdsourcing Agency: ignition Coke s activation at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London was a global campaign that began with live crowdsourcing, continued with one of the biggestever customized music tie-ins and became one of the largest examples of sports and entertainment fusion. There was full-time social media amplification and global retail elements before and during the Games, and on-site in London, Coke unveiled a brand pavilion that will forever change how this industry uses temporary architecture. To strike a chord with consumers all over the world, Coke anchored its activation in the language of music, ultimately powering a global sports activation with a music platform. For the campaign, dubbed Move to the Beat, Grammy Award-winning producer Mark Ronson created an exclusive Olympic anthem called Anywhere in the World that became the foundation of Coke s activation it was played along the Olympic Torch Relay, downloaded around the world via the web and Coke apps and played on extensive above-the-line media flights. Coke let consumers select the 1,500 Olympic torchbearers tens of thousands nominated and voted online for inspirational youths they deemed deserving of the honor. The move turned the 70- day Olympic Torch Relay into a crowdsourced traveling experience amplified by 61 concerts and five full-market metro events in the U.K. A PAVILION UNLIKE ANY OTHER Coke also crowdsourced designs for its brand pavilion in London s Olympic Park. A list of 20 up-and-coming architects yielded Asif Khan and Pernilla Ohrstedt (both under 35 years old), who designed the Beatbox a branded experience that interacted with consumers and that consumers could interact with right back. It turned out to be quite the spectacle, with architecture that many considered as interesting as that of the actual Olympic venues. The giant facade was made up of 230 ETFE plastic cushions with embedded sensors and speakers cranking Anywhere in the World, turning the entire exterior of the Beatbox into a customizable mixing station where consumers could change the song as they engaged in the overall experience. 24 Event Marketer The 100 Best Event Case Studies, Vol. 3s SPONSORSHIPS
The Beatbox incorporated a rooftop deck with killer views of Olympic Park, photo activation stations, a glowing nightclub-style hallway in which sampling bars popped out of the walls, and a party venue on the ground level, where brand ambassadors sang, consumers danced and samples were served and no exterior branding or LED screens. The lines to get in kept moving, but waits reached 90 minutes, and Coke dedicated a dozen brand ambassadors to entertain the crowd and keep consumers happy. FLAME ON Coke found strategic ways to include its Powerade brand in the sponsorship as well. The energy drink used the Games to connect Olympic athletes with the Cube, a large living room/game room/hangout lounge inside the Athletes Village. The visual anchor of the brand s area was a faux British pub that served Coke products. Athletes could participate in several experiences by using their unique identification number to register on computers or tablets throughout the Cube. Then, they could sign up to receive free Powerade Pro sports hydration powder or create their own customized Powerade water bottle. Sports scientists recruited by Powerade discussed the merits of proper hydration with athletes, and a large touchbased hydration calculator and several other monitors offered up hydration information. Athletes could sign up for a 30-minute session in the Coke Beat Lab, where a music producer helped them record their own version of Anywhere in the World. (Audio was emailed to them and posted to social media later in the day.) The live experiences were mirrored online at Coke s Olympic website, where consumers could mix their own version of the song and share it to Facebook, upload videos, download Olympic updates to their mobile devices and learn about Coke, its athletes, its programming and more. Sales lifts were measured as high as 270 percent along the Torch Relay route, and more than 1.25 million samples were served throughout the full activation. More than 150,000 attendees went through the Beatbox, where they spent in excess of an hour and more than three million Olympic Park visitors saw the pavilion. Some 82 percent of attendees said Coca-Cola helped to make their Olympic experience a once-in-a-lifetime memory. SPONSORSHIPS Event Marketer The 100 Best Event Case Studies, Vol. 3 25
21 Google s Themed Environments at SXSW Pay Tribute to Users, Products Agency: Sparks Google s activation at South by Southwest might not have been in one of the festival s official venues, but it gave the Internet giant one of the coolest hangouts around. Google took over four trendy bars and an entire city street to establish its Google Village footprint. Each bar was decked out in a different theme and dedicated to one of Google s products, product suites or user bases. The Maps house focused on location technology and both current and new software. Fittingly, given one of Google Maps best features, the company set up a Street View Car just outside which quickly became a popular backdrop for fans photo opps. The Android house was all about the brand s operating system, and it was covered with custom-made versions of the Android robot icon. The Developer house hosted a Lego builda-thon and hacker talks; and the Discovery house highlighted Google s plans for the future, complete with demos of upcoming products and opportunities to sign up to beta test them. 36 Event Marketer The 100 Best Event Case Studies, Vol. 3s SPONSORSHIPS
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For Launch of Windows 8, Microsoft Gives Fans, Media a Supersized Demo 88 To introduce consumers and members of the media to Windows 8, Microsoft took over 39 screens for three days at New York City s most iconic intersection. Not surprisingly, considering the brand behind it, the technology was awesome. Microsoft wanted to provide consumers with a hands-on experience with the new operating system, going beyond a simple demo. Other objectives were to demonstrate how Windows 8 s live tiles, icons and modules update in real time with information relevant to the user, and show off other features like snap view and full screen apps. The brand covered Times Square with oversized tables with Windows 8-based PCs, and broadcast video of consumers using the OS on the ground so that thousands more could see it on the jumbo screens above. They were all synchronized so that as consumers played with the desktops, their photos and drawings appeared seamlessly on the screens closest to them. Visitors even played Windows 8 games in gigantic scale by mirroring gameplay to the American Eagle and Reuters screens. Microsoft used a combination of off-the-shelf software and custom code to make the content sync and flow seamlessly. Agency: R/GA Technology Event Marketer The 100 Best Event Case Studies, Vol. 3 149