ATLANTA: Coca-Cola announced the ambassadors for its Expedition 206 social media campaign on Monday, kicking off a new phase of PR around the global tour, which is slated to begin January 1, 2010. The three ambassadors—Toño, Kelly, and Tony—will spend 2010 traveling to 206 global markets on the search for "happiness" and building the Coca-Cola brand.
As the brand ambassadors travel for the beverage company, they'll interact with local communities and blog and otherwise promote their activities.
"You can see the integration of marketing and communications; we're looking at this program as both," said Adam Brown, director of the office of digital communications and social media for Coke. "It's also an interesting connection of traditional and new media. This is about storytelling; this is about true, honest dialogue with our fans and creating compelling pieces of content that gets people excited and people can relate to."Coke and PR agency Fast Horse previously promoted the overall campaign and online voting aspect, which resulted in the chosen team, and the events this week announced the winners, promoted personalities of ambassadors, and the upcoming tour. The ambassadors participated in an SMT, as well as interviews online, highlighting the campaign's focus on social media.
"We've been working with the team ever since and conducting media and blog interviews," said Scott Broberg, VP at Fast Horse, noting that ambassador Toño was able to do interviews in Spanish for Telemundo and other Spanish-language outlets. "They conducted interviews not only via satellite, but via telephone, via Skype, and via Twitter, all in the same day."
Online, Coke has posted photos, videos, and information about the ambassadors, showcasing their personal stories. The Expedition 206 winners will use social media to keep people talking about Coke and the tour throughout the next year, writing blog posts, tweeting, and posting photos and videos from their adventures.
