Did Coca-Cola miss its Olympic Target?

Coca-Cola has been an Olympic Partner since 1928 - the longest continuous sponsor of the games.  Leading into the games in Great Britain, music became a central theme for Coca-Cola as a way to engage young people.  Joe Beliotti, the company's head of music, called on Mark Ronson to lead the charge.  Ronson recorded sounds of athlete's from different Olympic sports (table tennis, archery, taekwondo and others) and used the sounds, with lyrics and vocals by Katy B, to create the Coca-Cola song, Anywhere in the World.  The song is part of the Move to the Beat ™, global teen focused Coca-Cola campaign that celebrates the beat of London 2012.  

A two minute "Move to the Beat" video debuted in February followed by the release of both a 4 minute and a one minute version of the feature (shown above).  To date, these three clips have been viewed almost three million times - not to mention the massive media on TV and online these past few weeks during the Olympics.  As an extension of "Anywhere in the World," Coca-Cola developed an online application within the campaign giving fans the opportunity to create and share their own beat using the music and the sounds of the games…anywhere in the world.

But based on my experience with the online application to "Create My Beat," I think they missed the mark.  There are two options presented when you go to the website.  You can either create without giving Coca-Cola access to FaceBook or you can sign in with FaceBook.  Coca-Cola would prefer you choose the latter so that they can access pictures, your timeline, friends, etc. and with the hope that it will also be shared.  But the real miss here is that the only thing you really do is allow access.  If access to FaceBook is granted, coca-Cola takes information and pictures from your profile and slots them into predetermined spots within their video.  They do give you the option of choosing from nine different sports themes and seven different musical genres to make the video, but outside of those two decisions, no other participation of creativity I needed.  And if you don't want to allow access to FaceBook, the experience is extremely generic to the point of feeling like you wasted your time.

I have been a part of many campaigns where user-generated content was encouraged - across all screens and on site as well as online.  What I have experienced through these campaigns is that fans like to create something that they can call their own - and share it with friends.  That is not the case here.  The application does all of the work and your participation is limited at best.  A much cooler and more integrated experience would (1.) allow you to choose from the background music provided, (2.) make Mark Ronson's recorded Olympic sounds available for samples and to (3.) allow the you to choose from slides or short video segments - provided by Coca-Cola as well as taken from the user's FaceBook profile.  This would allow you to "own" the creative process within the guidelines of the Coca-Cola application.  Maybe, courtesy of Coca-Cola, a link to your custom mix could be emailed once completed so it can be streamed or shared with your entire FaceBook community.  This experience creates more excitement and could potentially lead you to create and share multiple versions of the mix.  Coca-Cola chose the simple and easy way to "create and share" but doesn't allow the user to get emotionally involved or really even care about what they are doing or sending.

Even though I did not enjoy the creative experience, I did like the fact that on the "Create My Beat" home page, Coca-Cola shows how many people have shared their "beat."  It has a menu that allows you to search by "Everyone, By Me and My FB Friends, Athletes and Celebrities," and a drop down menu to search by "Nation."  According to the website, and to a report from IEG (a leading sponsorship consulting agency), over 3.2 million users have shared their "beat."  So I decided to see how the United States would fare if there was a medal for most "beats" shared.  I clicked on the drop down menu and selected the  United States, but something didn't make sense.  The counter said that in the United States, only 2284 people had shared their beat.  So I tried the United Kingdom.  Hmmm.  1059 from the United Kingdom.  How could there be 3.2 million beats shared when less than 3500 came from the U.S. and the U.K. combined?  Coca-Cola supports a lot of athletes, so I clicked on that button to see how many athletes around the world participated in this campaign.  Four?!  Mark Ronson went around the world meeting and talking with athletes - specifically working with 5 athletes to record the sounds for the song - and they have a total of four that have shared their own version?  Then I realized that I was getting sidetracked.  I wanted to find who actually shared these 3.2 million beats.  Going down the menu of counties, I clicked and saw some mind boggling results.  Sweden - 57.  Italy - 989.  Russia - 805.  Japan - 343.  China - 3,212,507.  What!? So of the 3,237,026 "beats" that had been shared,  99.2% of  them came from China??  They must LOVE creating their own beats.

Not only was I disappointed with the entire creative experience but now I was wondering if any of this sharing data was even true.  So I waited 24 hours to see how many more people might create and share their beats.  Globally the numbers went up less than 750.  Shares in the U.S. went up 43 and still only 4 athletes and celebrities participated in the process.  And China?  There was no change.

On August 5th, IEG sent out a tweet titled "Expressions Top Impressions" with a link to the Coca-Cola "Create Your Beat" website touting the over 3.2 million shares.  I assume they didn't realize at the time that over 99% of the created beats were from China.  IEG then sent out a slide that tracked the Social Media Performance of the Olympic sponsors.  Coca-Cola was #1 in Top Performers and Highest Status while taking 9th in Greatest Potential.  I assume they are counting the "Create Your Beat" online application in their numbers.  But if they are - that would seem to be inaccurate.  I don't have statistics on Twitter mentions, FB mentions, Pinterest, Tumblr and others, but I assume the almost 3 million YouTube views are a part of the overall equation.  Maybe all of the YouTube plays are from China too? 

Coca-Cola is the #1 soft drink around the world…and for good reason.  They are no doubt a tremendous sponsor and supporter of the Olympics.  They are creative, philanthropic and have gone to great lengths to be very environmental during the Olympic games.  But this "creating and sharing" music initiative was a total miss and I now find it hard to believe any of the statistics attached to them or the games.  

  http://www.coca-cola.com/theolympics/en-US