The Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony is only one day away. While athletes are preparing for one of the most important events of their career, spectators for witnessing history in the making, the sponsors are eyeing the benefits that their endeavor will bring if the event is successful.
Among all of the companies that are supporting the current edition of the Olympic Games the oldest sponsor is Coca-Cola, eToro analyst for Romania, Bogdan Maioreanu observed in a commentary.
The history of Coca-Cola and the International Olympic Committee started in 1928. The company sponsored the 1928 Olympic Games in Amsterdam and has supported every Olympic Games since.
Visa first partnered with the Olympics in 1986, Samsung in 1988, P&G in 2010, Toyota in 2015 and Airbnb in 2019. In fact, in a study by Nielsen about the global awareness of brand association with the Olympics, Coca-Cola is dominating with almost 55%. A little more than 43% of global consumers were aware of Visa’s association with the Olympics as of May 2024. The other brands were, in order, Samsung, Toyota, Airbnb and P&G.
The brands above are trying to make the most of their association with the Olympics and here Coca-Cola looks to be a champion too. From January to May 2024, Coca-Cola has spent over $440 million on advertising, Airbnb $250 million, and Visa has spent nearly $29 million, according to Nielsen. Coca-Cola sponsorship for IOC is estimated at an annual cost of around $93M, which allows Coca-Cola to promote its products to the world’s most talked-about sporting event. The company also is one of the two official sponsors of the Olympic torch relay through a deal with Paris 2024 worth around $18.6M.
Coca-Cola posted good Q2 financial results. Net revenue grew 3% to $12.4 billion, and organic revenue grew 15%, more than expected 9% consensus. The organic sales growth was notably higher than PepsiCo’s 2.9% in a basically overlapping period. But Coca-Cola recognized that bad weather in Europe has led to some decreases in consumption away from home in certain countries. For this reason, sporting events like the recently concluded Euro 2024 and the soon starting Olympic games are going to help the company’s sales. The company also increased its all-year projections with adjusted organic revenue growth of 9 to 10%, and anticipates comparable EPS growth of 5% to 6%, versus $2.69 posted in 2023.
Investors have noticed the strong results of the beverage giant Coca-Cola, with the stock price being up almost 12% from the beginning of the year as opposed to its rival Pepsi which is down almost 1% in the same period. On the trading and investing social platform eToro, Coca-Cola is 18th most held stock by Romanian retail investors and 16th globally.
