Fluttering against the 40-foot tall, pulsating, neon red cola bottle, Zhang Zheng’s Chinese flag nearly disappeared. Lucky for the Coco-Cola Company, red is an auspicious color in China.
Zhang admitted he wasn’t particularly fond of the beverage. Though, as his favorite Olympian is Chinese NBA basketball star Yao Ming, the centerpiece of the company’s marketing strategy for the Games, the 7-year-old from Shandong Province may prove to be a cola drinker yet. Others are getting a baptism by fire, like 3-year-old Little Bang, in his father’s arms, awash in the red glow of an advertisement emanating from Asia’s largest outdoor digital screen.
At the core of Beijing’s Central Business District the official Olympic sponsor has transformed the perimeter of the 250-meter long by 30-meter wide screen into a veritable cola paradise, including live music performances, glowing Terracotta Warriors models, games, and of course, plenty of free beverages. Welcome to the “Shuang Zone.” Employing one of the Chinese characters for the word refreshing, it is ground-zero for Coke’s extensive advertising campaign in Beijing.
On a flyer distributed at the entrance, the words “refreshing, cold Coca-Cola = Shuang” explain the theme of the cola wonderland. According to an event organizer at the Zone, given that 98 percent of the audience will be Chinese, the potentially misleading translation is beside the point. Chinese are usually very proud of their translation for the drink, “Kekou Kele.” While phonetically similar, the characters translate as something akin to “drink it and be happy.” Still, though the meaning for shuang is self-evident for Chinese, undoubtedly there will be at least one well intentioned foreigner in Beijing this summer who, to the befuddlement of the server at a local eatery, will attempt in Chinese to order a “refreshing.”
The Coca-Cola Company has a long history of Olympic sponsorship. The longest, in fact, according to the company website, which offers the 1928 Games in Amsterdam as its first Olympics. Since then, the company has learned how to attack the Olympic market. Here in Beijing, the Olympic campaign ads seem nearly ubiquitous, as sanctioned sponsors have the run of city advertising space. Liu Xiang, China’s gold medal hopeful in the 110 meter hurdles, stares at Beijing commuters from the starting blocks at stops along the subway. Not a few teenage girls have paused to get a picture next to the enormous head of the Olympic heartthrob.
As it was the first foreign company allowed back into China following the economic reforms instituted by Deng Xiaoping in 1979, Coca-Cola’s operation in China is a unique barometer of the country’s transition over the past 30 years. In one sense, it shows the deep relationship that exists between the company and the once ideologically socialist consumer base. In another sense, Coke’s aggressive approach to this summer’s Olympics, as well as the similar tact taken by other sponsors of the Games, speaks to the enormous importance that the Chinese consumer market carries in corporate calculations.
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