Rolling out its Move to the Beat campaign internationally, Coca-Cola has found out that young Chinese don’t perceive London as a city with influential musical heritage, while the main idea of this Olympics campaign is the celebration of this fact. 

Photo: Beat of China poster, from livetradingnews.com

To cope with the problem, the company has customized the campaign for Chinamarket and called it created the Beat of China. The campaign encourages fans to submit their own beats to create an anthem that would cheer their athletes competing at the London Olympics.

«Previous research showed that after the huge success and high relevance of ’08 (the Beijing Olympics), there was a perceived distance between Chinese people and London. The main task was to close that emotional and physical distance in a relevant way,» said Marina Palma, sparkling director for China, in an interview to Ad Age. «The idea of unity and uniting the people of China to send their happy energy to beat for the athletes in London actually turned out to be very powerful.»

Mini-Documentaries (in Mandarin) created as part of the initiative feature personal stories of five Chinese Olympians and Coca-Cola is rolling out a traveling roadshow, special Coke cans and a dedicated Angry Birds game. The mini-documentaries proved to be very successful—they were viewed 320 million times within two weeks, according to Coke data. The goal was to collect 100 million beats, but consumers have submitted more than 180 million in just a couple of days.

The official Coke anthem is performed in Chinaby Hong Kong pop star Jacky Cheung who first sang it in April at the Bird’s Nest National Stadium in Beijing. An updated version of the song, featuring the beats submitted by consumers, will be released on July 12, incorporating.

The agencies involved in the campaign include Leo Burnett  Shanghai, Starcom and Heartland (media), Redfly (PR), WWWins Isobar (digital) and Bestshine (event). Coca-Cola is the most-preferred nonalcoholic beverage brand in China and the company continues to work hard to attract new consumers.

In the US, Coca-Cola is giving American fans the chance to look closer at some of Team USA athletes.