A New Kind of Triple Play

Is it programming or is it commercial? When the Olympics are on TV, not even your hairdresser knows for sure.

Witness the one new wrinkle in TV coverage of the 1992 Summer Olympics--the nightly music videos that link Coca-Cola, Time Warner and NBC. These four-minute segments that appear to be part of NBC’s Olympic programming also double as a complex, multidimensional advertising campaign for all three companies.

While there is nothing inherently sinister about this novel marketing ploy, especially in the context of an Olympics that is noted for its commercialization and corporate in-fighting, it is the first three-way corporate partnership that combines network television programming with advertising and promotion.

Each night during NBC’s prime-time coverage of the Olympics, the network airs a music video that intercuts a moody performance by such big-name pop stars as Rod Stewart, Tina Turner, Elton John, Natalie Cole, En Vogue and Randy Travis with sports footage of an Olympic athlete or sport that the song serenades. Since nearly all of the musicians featured during the Games are part of the Warner Music Group, a subsidiary of Time Warner, the music company has provided the videos free to NBC, which then has inserted the sports footage at its discretion.

One lengthy video vignette, dropped into a dramatic pause in the women’s gymnastic competition, featured Eric Clapton singing “(You Look) Wonderful Tonight” to pictures of the U.S. gymnasts putting on their outfits and makeup prior to the competition and then twirling gracefully through the air.

Flush against the end of each video, a Coke promotion pops up that declares, “That video was fabulous, wasn’t it?” and then explains that viewers can win recordings of these Olympic songs by buying packages of Coke. The company has stashed 20 million certificates in soft drink packages that can be redeemed for a six-song CD sampler and is selling cassette samplers to Coke consumers for only $1.25.

Even though this spot looks like a Coke commercial, it doesn’t cost Coke a penny. As a service to Coke and to viewers interested in obtaining this music, NBC is giving up this time free, said Alan Cohen, NBC’s senior vice president, marketing.

Coke, in turn, is the biggest Olympic sponsor, spending upward of $30 million for ad time on NBC during the Barcelona Games. And over the past month, it has spent millions more on the radio, on TV, in print and in stores, telling people to watch the Olympics on NBC.

Cohen said that NBC had planned to use music as a part of its Olympic coverage even before making the tie-ins with Coke and Warner Music. Devising this musical programming and promotional element has enabled NBC to “add value to Coke’s immense investment in our Olympic coverage,” Cohen explained. “If we can integrate promotion and advertising, we believe that we can offer a bigger sales lift for our advertisers. Coke is a big advertiser of ours, and we wanted to show them what a big impact this kind of campaign can have on sales.”

In addition, NBC hoped to draw the kind of viewers who are not inclined to watch sporting events night after night--especially younger viewers and women--by emphasizing emotion, drama and personality. Music, especially when performed by big-name pop stars who are popular enough to bring music fans to the TV, helps to do that, Cohen said.

While Cohen conceded that like commercials themselves these videos have been targets of derision from sports fans who object to any time devoted to anything but the competition, he contended that the music has contributed to NBC’s ratings success so far. Overall ratings for the first eight days of the Olympics were up nearly 10% over the 1988 games in Seoul, Korea, while ratings for young adults and teen-agers were up 15% and a whopping 44%, respectively.

These young demographics are critical, Cohen said, because many of NBC’s fall series, and hence many of the promos for new shows the network is airing during the Olympics, are aimed at these younger viewers.

Cohen said that no one has complained about blurring the lines between programming and advertising in these videos. He pointed out that the division between NBC and its advertisers remains unbroken because Coke had nothing to do with production of the videos and no Coke product is seen during the video segments.

“Bob Costas isn’t there drinking a can of Coke saying, ‘And now thanks to Coke we bring you this wonderful video,’ ” Cohen said. “It plays as pure entertainment programming that is involving for the viewer, and our sports department had intended to use music anyway. The only thing out of the ordinary is we haven’t done anything like this before.”

The videos provide a way for Coke to attach itself more directly to the Games and to break through the clutter of Kodak, Visa, Nike, Reebok, Budweiser, AT&T; and McDonald’s ads that dominate each night’s hours of coverage. And since each song is a loving tribute to a popular American athlete such as gymnast Shannon Miller, the star-studded men’s basketball team or swimmer Pablo Morales, Coke is also able to link itself to these Olympic stars without having to pay any expensive endorsement fees.

“It is a way for us to stand out among all the other sponsors by having this exceptional activity going on within the Olympics,” said Randy Donaldson, a spokesman for Coca-Cola. “Coke has been a part of the Olympics since 1928. This is in a way just an extension of that, but it’s also being involved in a new and different way. It links Coke with the Olympics and with music, and we think that makes us stand out.”

After deciding to join forces two years ago on this project, Coke and NBC approached several record companies--last summer Coke conducted a similar music giveaway promotion with Sony--and settled on the Warner Music Group because of the extensive list of stars the company w s willing to provide. NBC, however, also insisted on using two non-Warner musicians, the Fresh Prince (who stars in an NBC sitcom) and Branford Marsalis (who is musical director of “The Tonight Show”), to help promote those NBC shows.

Warner Music signed on because the free exposure for its various music groups before such a huge prime-time audience is likely to boost record sales, a company spokeswoman said, and the CD and cassette samplers available through Coke will also serve as mini-promotions for Warner groups.

The music company will also profit from the sales of “Barcelona Gold,” a 17-song album of these songs on sale now in record stores, with a portion of the profits going to the Special Olympics.