Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Coverage of Coca-Cola, McDonald’s and Visa Focuses on Feel-Good Olympic Ads

By Dow Jones Insight Staff

With a little more than a week to go before the Opening Ceremonies, Coca-Cola maintains its lead in coverage among the 12 global sponsors of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games in both traditional and social media sources. Between July 15 and July 28, Coke had 186 mentions, or 22%, of the total 832 mentions in traditional media sources analyzed by Dow Jones Insight. McDonald’s was close behind, with 167 mentions, or 20%, followed by Visa with 143 mentions for 17%. Much of the coverage of these three companies focused on their new ad campaigns, which are just being unveiled in anticipation of the Opening Ceremonies. All three have introduced ads centered on the themes of global unity, working together and achieving dreams.

General Electric had 88 mentions for 11%, Samsung had 74 mentions for 9% and Lenovo, the only Chinese company among the global sponsors, had 56 mentions for 7%. Panasonic had 5% of mentions, followed by Omega with 4%, and Johnson & Johnson and Kodak with 3% each. The remaining two sponsors, Atos Origin and Manulife, each had less than 3% of mentions.

Coca-Cola also came out on top among the global sponsors in social media sources analyzed by Dow Jones, with 188, or 34%, of 553 total mentions. McDonald’s had 117 mentions, or 21%, and Visa followed with 68 mentions, or 12%. Like press coverage, bloggers and those posting to message boards were mentioning the top three companies’ feel-good ads. A handful of mentions were critical of the companies for their implied support of China despite criticism of the country’s human rights and environmental policies. But the majority of comments seemed more neutral in tone, mentioning the companies’ sponsorships in passing or tie-ins such as McDonald’s Olympic “Beijing Burger” and other theme menu items.

Samsung and General Electric each had 11% of mentions in the analyzed social media. Omega had 18 mentions, or 3%, and Lenovo had 16 mentions for 3%. Rounding out the top 10, Panasonic had 12 mentions, or 2%, Johnson & Johnson had eight mentions, or 1%, and Kodak had six mentions, or 1%. Atos Origin and Manulife each finished with less than 1% of coverage.

Methodology: Analysis includes the English-language sources taken from a database of 6,000 newspapers, wires, magazines, radio and TV transcripts; about 13,000 current-awareness news sites; 60,000 message boards and about two million blogs.

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