Coca-Cola at the Olympics

The Idea

Coca-Cola have twinned up with Pioco, a Chinese bluetooth media company to send out advertising videos to suitable phones at multiple hotpsots around Beijing and elsewhere in China.

Before the Olympics kicked off, 500 hotspots were set up around Beijing. There was also a hotspot on the Coke’s Olympic Torch Relay Truck, which traveled from Athens to Beijing. I believe that started in March, so millions of people have been reached as the truck went through various cities. As of July, 1,200 hotspots were installed, and by September there will be 5,000. 22,000 locations have been signed up, however, and by the end of the year Pioco expects to have 15,000 installed in 5 cities – Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Hangzhou. Right now most of the hotspots are in Beijing and Shanghai.

The broadcast a variety of Coke videos, such as this one (used with permission)

(the quality here is not great, as I’ve taken a mobile optimised video and uploaded to a web video service – it’s a lot better in the original)

What I think

I’m always wary with bluetooth videos as I’m not always convinced of the value. It’s good they need to have permission to be downloaded, so there’s already a value attached to them before the viewing – they’ve been seeing conversion rates of up to 65% The videos then need to deliver on the experience and these are too close to advertising instead of fun for me. Other viewpoints may vary though.

The Pitch

The initial email was short on information (annoying), but there was enough there for me to ask for more. Videos and more details were promptly delivered, which was great. There was a polite follow up to see if I was going to do anything with the stuff that was sent through (yes, i can be late on these things!)