Coke to broadcast live TV show during Olympics

Coca-Cola will broadcast a live TV programme during the London 2012 Olympics to try and inspire young people to get involved in sport.

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The drinks company is in talks with broadcasters and production companies to produce the programme, which will feature sport, music and celebrities. It is not yet known whether the show will broadcast online or on a television channel.

James Eadie, Olympic portfolio director for Coca-Cola Great Britain, says the company will take inspiration from its Coke Zero Wayne Rooney Street Striker show, which has been broadcast on Sky 1 since 2008.

He says: “Our role at Coca-Cola is to show people the social side of the Games, to give people the opportunity to see how the athletes are interacting and help connect that back to what we are doing across the board.”

The as yet unnamed programme forms part of Coca-Cola’s wider global integrated campaign for the Olympics, dubbed Move to the Beat.

An “anthem” to soundtrack the campaign is currently being created by Mark Ronson and Katy B, which uses the sounds of Olympic hopefuls playing sport – such as a table tennis player and an archer releasing a bow from their arrow – as the drum beat and base line for the song.

The song will feature in 60-second spot ads that will air from 2012 and will also be released as a single next year. A 60-minute documentary about the making of the track is also due to be released next year.

Sanjay Guha, marketing and Olympics director for Coca-Cola Northwest Europe and Nordics, says the ad marks the first time the company has fused music and sport together.

“We believe the Olympics is magical and we want to bring that magic to people by creating content that has a legacy and makes a difference to the communities that we operate in,” he says.

Other elements of the campaign will include outdoor, in-store, on-pack, digital and mobile.

The Olympic campaign also falls in to Coca-Cola’s “open happiness” strategy, which will appear as the tagline to the TV ads when they are broadcast next year.

Coca-Cola has previously stated its intentions to make its music marketing platform an “established music brand” in its own right.

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