Coke helps Indian fans leave a mark at FIFA World Cup

More than 13,000 Indians were featured on the digitally produced 'Happiness Flag' which was unveiled on the opening day at the Arena de Sao Paulo. And in Kolkata, it has lined up wide-ranging consumer engagement initiatives

BestMediaInfo Bureau | Mumbai | June 20, 2014

The city of Kolkata, popularly referred to as India's football capital, has begun celebrating the FIFA World Cup. This is the time when politics takes a backseat and football rules the discussions and addas. Looking at this madness and huge excitement in that city, Coca-Cola India has organised a series of consumer engagement initiatives.

It has flagged off its 'Happiness Canters' across Kolkata and West Bengal, which will be there till the end of this month. These canters will give consumers a chance to win exclusive and original Coca-Cola FIFA merchandise including footballs, T-shirts, caps, sippers, wrist bands, etc., by participating in fun games. The brand will also go to 14 selected places in Kolkata and upcountry Bengal, where they will engage the fans in an evening of fun and happiness activities and games connected with football.

Debabrata Mukherjee

Debabrata Mukherjee, Vice-President, Marketing & Commercial, Coca-Cola India, said, “Football is everyone's sport and Coca-Cola is everyone's beverage. The FIFA World Cup in Brazil 2014 provides the world's leading beverage brand 'Coca-Cola' an opportunity to help celebrate football as a 'force for good'. Our programmes and initiatives around the football World Cup will leverage our existing partnerships at the grassroot level as well as our global scale and local activations. While our association with football in India and across the world has been longstanding, the month-long carnival of football will give us another opportunity to bring people together just like we did during the Coca-Cola FIFA World Cup Trophy Tour in December last year.”

Starting July 4, Coca-Cola, for the first time ever, will be creating 'Fan Parks' in two major locations in Kolkata and Howrah. The two mega carnivals will not just include large format live screening of select FIFA World Cup matches (quarter finals, semi-finals and finals) but also organise fun games, food stalls, fan art, Coca-Cola refreshment counters and an opportunity for fans to win original Coca-Cola FIFA merchandise. The company has tied up with 92.7 FM to ensure football lovers get regular updates about Coca-Cola FIFA activation across the city.

More than 13,000 Indians were featured on the digitally produced 'Happiness Flag' which was unveiled on the first day of the World Cup at the ground itself. While there are only 32 countries that are represented by their national football teams in the 2014 FIFA World Cup, this flag gave an opportunity to football fans from across the world to make it to the football pitch. The flag includes images of 13,000 Indians who sent their photos, which also speaks for the fact, that the number of entries sent from India is the second highest and the next only to the number of entries received from Brazil.

The design for the Coca-Cola Happiness Flag has been created by Brazilian artist Speto and Argentinean artist Tec and brings to life the power of football to bridge social, cultural, racial, gender, economic, and geographic divides. The digital Photomosaic has been done by the world renowned Robert Silvers, CEO of Runway Technology and inventor of Photomosaic technology. The flag measures 67m x 45m and is the size of a football field.

Football legend Andres Iniesta and other well-known personalities from around the world, such as Ryan Seacrest (host of American Idol), Alex Morgan (gold medallist and American soccer player) have also uploaded their image for the Happiness Flag.

The digital version of the flag will be live on www.happinessflag.com, where consumers will be able to see an aerial shot of the flag hover over the mosaic. Fans who submitted photos will also receive an email from Coca-Cola with a link to see exactly where they were on the flag and on the pitch, and are encouraged to share their photo using #worldscup.

Sarmistha@BestMediaInfo.com

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