Coca-Cola, McDonald’s and Visa Lead Post-Games Coverage of Olympic Sponsors

By Dow Jones Insight Staff

Although the Beijing Olympic Games had 12 global sponsors, three sponsors led coverage in traditional and social media sources in analyses before, during and, now, after the Games. Those three – Coca-Cola, McDonald’s and Visa – combined to garner 65% of coverage in both traditional and social media during the period of August 26 to September 8.

Coca-Cola had 158 of the 565 total mentions in social media sources analyzed by Dow Jones Insight, for 28%. McDonald’s was second with 135 mentions, for 24%, and Visa was third with 73 mentions, for 13%. Of the 768 total mentions in traditional media sources, Coca-Cola had 209 mentions, for 27%, Visa had 158 mentions, for 21%, and McDonald’s had 129 mentions, for 17%. In the weeks leading up to the Games, a significant amount of coverage of these three sponsors was negative, focusing on their implied complicity in China’s poor human rights record. Once the Games started, however, coverage of these companies softened somewhat, focusing instead on their presence in Beijing, their commemorative merchandise and their feel-good ads.

In social media sources, GE was fourth with 53 mentions, for 9%. Samsung had 44 mentions, for 8%. Lenovo, the only Chinese company among the global sponsors, and Panasonic each had 5% of mentions. Omega and Johnson & Johnson each had 3% and Kodak had 2%. French IT company Atos Origin and Canadian financial services company Manulife failed to make the top 10.

In traditional media sources, General Electric had 66 mentions, for 9%. Samsung had 60 mentions, for 8%, and Lenovo had 54 mentions, for 7%. Omega and Johnson & Johnson each had 4% of mentions. Atos Origin and Kodak rounded out the top 10, each with 2% of mentions. Panasonic and Manulife did not crack the top 10 in traditional media sources.

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.