Coca Cola's Road to Beijing

Coca-Cola’s road to Beijing began with its first Olympic sponsorship in 1928 and continues today with the climax of its 150-country Olympic marketing blitz, Coke’s largest Olympic effort ever. Coke turned to Schawk and Anthem to translate its Olympics communications strategy to packaging. Faced with balancing the company’s visual identity standards with the International Olympic Committee’s standards, the” Coke Side of Life” campaign principles, as well as the Beijing Olympics identity, Anthem found its own challenges of Olympic proportions.

With a team drawn from offices around the globe, we worked with a consortium of Coke’s global design partners to inspire people to live on the “Coke Side of Life” coupled with the notion of Olympic possibilities. The packaging guidelines and standards incorporate brand elements drawn from East and West to position Coca-Cola as an active participant in the Beijing games...not a passive sponsor. The guidelines offer freedom for localization within a framework of global consistency; they have been adopted by key regions around the globe.

A critical element of the program’s success was leveraging a wide range of our company’s talents...from strategic to creative to executional. It’s a real-world example of a progressive client’s embrace of brand point management to deliver a compelling and consistent brand experience. With millions of consumers engaging with the company’s Olympic packaging, Anthem helped Coke realize its bold, empowering and positive vision for the Beijing games.

Anthem, a Schawk Strategic Design Company, is a global network integrated across 12 offices that provides innovative solutions to articulate, unify and manage brand impact. Anthem creates compelling brand experiences by aligning its strategic, creative and implementation talent worldwide with the business needs of companies seeking a competitive advantage.