The Marketing Magic of the Olympic Torch Relay

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Beginning with the 1936 Berlin Olympics, the torch relay has been a tradition that connects the host city to Athens, the birthplace of the Games, and the mythos of Ancient Greece. Since the 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona, Coca-Cola has been the organizer of this powerful tradition—both for winter and summer.

James Williams, The Coca-Cola Company’s Vice President of Olympics Assets and Experiential Marketing for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, will talk about how the company is leveraging the ever-increasing sophistication of social media to discover innovative ways to involve casual and serious Olympic fans and to link the Coca-Cola brand.

Williams will share stories of challenge and triumph from past Olympiads and offer a sneak peek at what marketing magic we may see when the next torch relay kicks off in Fukushima Prefecture on March 26, 2020.

About the Speaker:

After an award-winning agency career working with various clients, including alcohol producers, telecoms, and fast-moving consumer goods, James Williams was recruited by Coca-Cola to work on the integrated marketing communications team. After various marketing roles in the northwest Europe business unit, James was moved to the company’s London 2012 Olympic project team to lead the execution of the torch relay. He delivered Coca-Cola’s most successful torch relay and was then posted to Coke Brazil to lead the company’s marketing and sponsorship for the Rio 2016 Games. In Rio, he created one of the most talked about and integrated activations ever for the Games. Continuing his career with Coca-Cola and the Olympics, he moved to Tokyo in 2017 as Vice President of Olympic Assets and Marketing for the Tokyo 2020 Games. His role is to build the legacies, strategies, and plans to successfully execute the Games both locally and globally.