Besides all the abundantly merchandising and advertising activities around the World Cup I found some very creative and surprisingly courageous branding activities introduced by the Coca-Cola company as part of the World Cup sponsorship. Not only do they support the hype on
Panini stickers by trading virtual football licensed stickers through the
Coca-Cola "We All Speak Football" Web site available in more than 10 languages. But even more fascinating is their
on the field marketing activity: They provide field boards in the stadia with the Coca-Cola font changing their colors - accordingly to the current playing team colors (as the picture below showing). This certainly drives traffic to the brand and expands marketing strategy and sponsorship in a good way.
In my opinion this is a huge step towards an open-minded market communication and Coke is pushing some innovative ideas - remembering times when for example the color blue wasn't even allowed in advertisements (fearing it could cause any confusion with the competitors corporate color). Being aware that creativity is the crucial point in an event like the World Cup with hundreds of advertisements and branding initiatives I suppose Coke is taking the right way..
