Coca Cola and the Olympics is sport’s most enduring commercial relationship. But how does it work on the inside? How relevant is the Games to today’s Coke drinker? Is the Olympic TOP programme still fit for purpose? And how can the IOC balance its promises around sustainability with the reality of hosting massive, multi-sport events, and sponsored by companies such as Coca Cola, which is one of the biggest producers of plastic in the world?As VP of Olympic Assets and Marketing, James Williams was Coca Cola’s man on the ground at three Summer Games, starting in London 2012, through Rio 2016 and onto the Covid delayed Tokyo Olympics in 2021. What he’s got to say talks to many of the big themes that dominate the sports business today and in to the future.
Below is the transcript of Unofficial Partner podcast #301, as Richard Gillis, along with Sally Hancock and Shaun Whatling, chat with James Williams (edited lightly for sense).
Do listen to the podcast, James is great. But if you want to dive into the detail, the transcript awaits…
Q Just tell us how you got into this game? What was the route into sport and your relationship to it?
JW : I guess it began many moons ago when I started my career in marketing, so when I started agency side, and one of my first forays into the sports world, which is probably showing my age, was the Worthington Cup Run. That was my first thing. It was kind of going around for that and being part of that and seeing how that kind of made a difference into a lot of the communities. And then I guess it evolved over time, so different clients, but it was Orange and telecoms, back when text messaging was still quite new.
Q How old are you????
JW : Not that old, I hope! But, so then, that evolved, I think through Carling as well back in the day and then a sidestep move into Coca Cola, which is where we created the ‘win a player’ campaign, which if you remember was a Football League sponsorship , based on a great insight and I think, for me, it was just the power that you saw of sports being able to really impact brand and the sales side, but also the engagement side, which was fantastic. And then a couple of years later, Coke very kindly asked me to come and join them and then it evolved from there. So I’ve worked across many brands from you know, the Coke Zero where we did the first Wayne Rooney Street Strikers series with Sky – which back then was kind of content marketing way before, I guess it was a bit of a Netflix thing that was way before its time. And again, that evolved in different ways of stuff. I’ve always found that the sports industry has such a power to add with that fan and brand engagement that it can deliver on so many different levels when you get it connected in the right way. It’s a super powerful piece and then I moved on to the Olympics at 2012.
I looked after the Torch Relay run around the country. 70 days getting very wet most of it except for two weeks at the beginning and two weeks at the end, delivering fantastic results not only from the commercial side, but also on you know, the softer side of it and also in really supporting and engaging with youth.
And then very fortunately, I was moved to Brazil, Rio de Janeiro. So, four and a half years in Rio, managing the Games sponsorship and the marketing for that locally and working closely with the team to really start to drive much more of that impact of the sponsorship. And then finally more recently, Tokyo, five and a half years in Tokyo. So, I guess being involved with it for many years, it’s a passion of mine and and for me it’s about the impact that it can have on so many different levels. Not only from a brand side, but on so many different levels in terms of society and different things like that.
Q : Which do you think was the most successful games for you, James?
JW : Well, I guess I mean, it depends if you look at it as a total games for cover guy with a brand or whereas an individual so for London on the torch relays that was one of the most successful relays always steal them is successful. We know for caregivers in terms of, you know, commercial returns consumer engagement, we did multiple events. And so that for me was always going to be a personal kind of it’s your own home country and things like that. But if you look at it now and Tokyo was successful because of the structure the way legacy plans and integrated those across the hall in the business, we deliver the highest level of commercial returns and not for just the period it was pre and post the highest marketing engagement scores and the bid for me that was a big piece is how we integrated ESG. So fundamentally we shifted that because when where we were ranked in the Nikkei brands ESG rankings and we moved up to fifth because of the way we’d integrated that and everything we do so I think purely from from a corporate point of view. Tokyo would definitely be the fifth one that made the biggest impact
Q : When you said about Tokyo being seen corporately as the most successful, is there a kind of a global measurement of how the Olympics is performing, for example, or is it more a question of comparing individual metrics from different Games?
JW : I don’t think there’s a there’s a specific global metric that you’ll see there. And Tokyo was always going to be a challenging one because of the pandemic so there were no audiences and also globally it didn’t have the same impact that it would have done normally. So different metrics. You’ve got a global piece: how many markets will activate it? What’s the impact on sales from that point of view, versus in the local market? So when I look at it very much with Japan that means we created very much a portfolio approach. So with multiple products and things like that, we halted the business and integrated them all into one clear direction which allowed us to do you know, commercial return and give the impact but also start to really deliver on things that are important which is much more the purpose and the giving back and the things that are important to consumers these days when for Tokyo its diversity and inclusion. How do you drive that? How do you make a decent societal impact with the power of the Pames? So in terms of a measurement, is there anything that’s consistent? No is the simple answer because every Games provides different opportunities. And also the brands are in very different places. So every two years, you’ve got different brands and different places, different levels of engagement and different things that you’re trying to change. So the objectives for what you’re trying to deliver change over that period of time. as well.
Q : I’m interested to know, James, about how sponsorship is actually viewed by the business. I mean, is it seen as integral to it? Or is it seen as something that’s kind of has to be done in an effort to perhaps avoid other competitors coming into that space?
JW : I mean, I can give you my point of view now, given that I’m now not working for them, but I think it’s always been a massive part of the business. If you think about the longevity, of the many, many years that it’s been hard to you know, the Olympic sponsorship is 94 years, I think now, FIFA was one of the first ones as well and you look at these long term kind of relationships and yes, it’s embedded and the thing is, I think for the future that’s more of a challenge. I think if you look at the last round and some of the big mega events, that becomes more and more challenging. Do they add the positive impact that they should be having? And that’s because of some of the countries they’ve gone to and problems that have been created. I think that is going to put pressure on. I do remember the conversation with you know, with a senior member of the leadership team. That’s right, James, we need to prove that this does start to give a return on investment. You know what, the Olympics does provide lots of different things, whether that’s tangible, or intangible, but you’ve got to find a way to actually deliver this because it’s going to become a question. So I think more and more it’s going to become a challenge as to do these things give back in the right way. And I think now you see a lot more movement towards music and especially the kind of digital world and things like that. So we’ll see.
Q : These conversations around Visa versus MasterCard, Coke versus Pepsi, it’s very binary, isn’t it? It’s because of a scale of those two or you know, your competitor and yourself one or the other.
JW : Yeah, and I suppose they probably use a bit of it. And I think that’s to think that we only do it to block. I think it would take a long time for another brand to come in, take over one of these sponsorships and have the recognition. I mean, because Coke is so synonymous with sponsorship, I think even a lot of the sponsorships we have tracking people say that Coke are sponsors, because it’s so synonymous. So I think there’s other things as such labelling kind of pieces on that. And but that comes down to what’s the objective of what you’re trying to do as the brand. So he looked at all these other brands, actually, what are they trying to get out of the sponsorship deals moving forward and I think that’s where you see sport and sponsorship at the moment that real point and inflection point at the moment is where do you start to get these things working for you as a brand in a different way depending on what the objective is. And therefore you’re putting serious dollar signs in because these the sponsorship deals are not going down in price. They’re only going up and then you’ve got to activate and then you’ve got everything on top. And it’s becoming harder and harder. I think so I think at this point there’s there is an inflection point. I think there’s got to be some serious changes across theindustry and how we approach this.
Q : James I know that Coke reviews and it’s only good practice to review the sponsorship but it would really struggle to step out. Because you know every World Cup and Olympics, Coke has a three month window where it’s massive for all the distributors and all the supermarket partners which are so important expecting it, you’d have to fill a such a massive gap. And also you’d lose that sense of just real global presence once every two years, so I see that I see it’s a necessary thing to review and it’s obviously good practice to consider why we’re doing this but you couldn’t possibly leave, could you?
JW : I’m sure there’s probably a few people having that conversation these days. The good thing I suppose with the IOC that it’s only every 10 years we have to have that conversation. So we’re just suppose does make it a lot easier because you’ve probably overturned to CMOS at that point. You might even change the CEO. So you’ve got a very different perspective on that. So I do think you have to line up as to how you do that. And I think this is where more of the future within sponsorship is that how do you come in and potentially plan to exit I mean, you look at the Premier League at the moment with Barclays and things like that. There’s some great stuff as well to move away from title and then all the grassroots stuff they’re doing and the diversity and inclusion stuff that they’re doing is fantastic. And that’s where you’ve got to evolve that relationship with that entity or rights holder to be more in line with what you’re trying to do as a business. So there comes a point again, one of the key things is : What’s the objective? I mean, you know, why do you do this? And I know every market that I would move into, so whether it was Brazil, Tokyo,the local sponsors would come in as soon as I arrived. We want to sit down to watch. So what are we doing? What do you mean? What do you do? What are we doing? We just thought we just bought a local partnership. Okay, great. What’s your objective? We haven’t got an objective. Really, you just you just signed off a $150 million deal. And you don’t have an objective. You know, that’s questionable. So when you look at that from a local luckily, it’s not coming back to that local city. So it’s not going to be a problem for a number of years because all the people that were involved. That’s when you got to get into why do people get into this then levels of sponsorship and what are they trying to get out of it as a brand? What’s really going to help you deliver on those objectives as a brand for you to continue the sponsorship.
Q : Earlier on when we’re talking about Coke globally and its objectives and you answered it quite broad terms in terms of allowing you to connect, I’d be really curious to know what is it almost like the business case for continued involvement? Is it just a collection of the achievements of the past? The past Olympics, you’ve got a huge heritage but what actually what are the key arguments to stay in? Is it just expressed as getting a global opportunity to connect with the world?
JW: I don’t think these days you can get away with objectives as general – because it’s not really trackable. And that goes in and out anyway, because you look at difference. Different games will have a different engagement level on different different levels. So I think that’s some these days, it’s got to be a huge driving sales huge driving return on investment. Can you actually commercialise what this is whether it’s a global sponsorship, so you’re doing this in the top 32 markets or whatever, or your talent do on a local level? What’s it trying to do? Now? The problem is when you sign a 10 year deal, the objectives will change over that period. So how do you measure success at the end? That’s hard to say because you’ve got all the external influences into that. So okay, you can look at, for example, London, it was a recession during London so did it impact our sales at that point? Simple answer is probably not as much as we would like to, and there’s all these different changes that are happening. So can you say does it work? Yes or no over a 10 year period? Is this about recruiting new consumers? Yes. Is it about building more? You know, a base of portfolio drinkers. That’s got to be the target, because ultimately, that’s what the goal is. We want to sell more something, whatever that is,
Q : Can I just ask question about you mentioned there about the 10 year I’ve always wondered about the impact of CMOS as they come in. Or even see, you’ve got this relationship. You mentioned FIFA and AIC I just outlive the CMO. Obviously, if I’m a CMO coming in, do I come at this? Do I test it in some way? Do I ask those questions or do I just assume that this is a relationship that I know you know, there are moments when it gets reviewed? And there’s some interesting stuff around the Chinese milk brand, which I can never pronounce? But what is the scope there? And do individual CMOS have any impact on this or does it just run in sort of isolation?
JW : Yeah, and also, I think, then you get into this kind of weird, weird world of categories. So I think Alibaba is the cloud sponsor. So what is that and how does that work? And how does that impact on everyone else? So I definitely think on a lot of these new ones that are coming in, yes, I think they’ve got a challenge for some of the older ones coming up. I think the IOC is going to be in for probably a challenging four years but in a very different way. So they’ve been challenged in the last four years. The ones that are renewing and this kind of, well, actually, what are the things that they’re giving back? And everyone seems to look forward and going, we’ve got a great plan and Paris and Milan and LA. And I think that’s just going to bring a whole host of different problems to the ones that we’ve had previously. Yeah, I do think because where do they see this? And it’s what you’re sold when you buy it. And this is the challenge. I think the sponsorship is what you buy at the time. It’s like okay, great. If you’re a B2B party, you can you can have access to all the other sponsors. And if you’re trying to switch something that’s quite fundamental to a big organisation, can you come in and change that they might not get the return on investment, and again, from the B2B and therefore, is this worth the millions of dollars that are invested?
Q : Would you include any of the new TOP partners in that kind of category in terms of having a radically new kind of more focused approach to partnership?
JW: The simple answer is, of course, they have impact because they drive the budgets that drive global campaigns and how that’s built and what resources are put behind that at a certain time. So yeah, if they’re not in favour of it, then they’re not going to put the kind of teams on it to build the kind of campaigns that need to work globally. They’ll reduce that down because they want to put their money into something else that they’re trying to do. And then there’s examples of that over time. And I think, to do they impact intimate No, unless they are the person at that point that when the renewal was up, and they go, Okay, does this work? Here’s my brand objectives. This is what I’m trying to do for five years. Is this an alpha still, and if it does, right, but if it doesn’t, and, and again, it’s going to be a brave and bold team as it goes, You know what we should get out or because people are going to question but again, is that a good thing or a bad thing? Is the legacy of that that you can’t get out? And actually could you take that money and invest it more effectively or efficiently, somewhere else? And that’s where I think now these days where people are getting a lot more detailed in their ROI, a lot more details on how you measure and track this. How do you see what the impact actually was? Then I think that’s going to start to answer that question, because then it’s not an emotional question. Then it’s based on did this do this? Yes. Okay, great. What’s the price tag into this? So, and I think that’s one of the challenges again, with sponsorship at the moment is how does that evolve? Because as society evolves, and as brands evolve, and objectives evolve, does the sponsorship deal evolve with them? And that’s part of the challenge with rightholders at the moment, it’s all cookie cutter. It’s like, oh, here’s everything you get. We’ve signed the deal. This is what you get done in two to three years. In five years, 10 years. This is where I think with some of the new kind of brands coming into sportsmanship. They’re a lot more diligent on what those results are, what those objectives are, does it work, yes or no?
Q : Would you include any of the new TOP partners in that kind of category in terms of having a radically new kind of more focused approach to partnership?
JW : Yeah, and also, I think, then you get into this kind of weird, weird world of categories. So I think Alibaba is the cloud sponsor. So what is that and how does that work? And how does that impact on everyone else? So I definitely think on a lot of these new ones that are coming in, yes, I think they’ve got a challenge for some of the older ones coming up. I think the IOC is going to be in for probably a challenging four years but in a very different way. So they’ve been challenged in the last four years. The ones that are renewing and this kind of, well, actually, what are the things that they’re giving back? And everyone seems to look forward and going, we’ve got a great plan and Paris and Milan and LA. And I think that’s just going to bring a whole host of different problems to the ones that we’ve had previously. Yeah, I do think because where do they see this? And it’s what you’re sold when you buy it. And this is the challenge. I think the sponsorship is what you buy at the time. It’s like okay, great. If you’re a B2B party, you can you can have access to all the other sponsors. And if you’re trying to switch something that’s quite fundamental to a big organisation, can you come in and change that they might not get the return on investment, and again, from the B2B and therefore, is this worth the millions of dollars that are invested?
Q : You said about new challenging times in terms of, you know, because we’ve had the big new markets we’ve been into the IOC has been into, and I kind of have a sense of what you mean, but can you expand a little bit in terms of the new challenges faced in the mature markets of Italy and France from us?
JW : Well, I think there’ll be a lot more there’s a lot more opportunities for different types of protests and things like that. I think you’re gonna have lots more, you know, when we look at everyone’s looking towards LA, which I think will be fantastic, but the US has challenges within it. If you look at like London 2012, it was you know, became the ‘fat’ Olympics and all this. This puts pressure on a lot of places it puts pressure on the brands that are sponsoring it, and now they’re supporting it, and therefore you are drawn into a conversation that you maybe don’t want because people will use as a showcase for different messages. So I think, you know, the same with Paris, I think they’ll all be fantastic games, but I do think it will have a different level of challenges in terms of the protests, what we’ll be bringing to the table, how that will impact the sponsors and drag sponsors into conversations that maybe they weren’t they this is not what they got into it.
Q : We had that little chat didn’t where you earlier on, about Tokyo and some of the hidden surprises that were there. And we mentioned the Kasumigaseki golf course which was chosen to be the venue and then it was discovered they didn’t actually allowprivate members to be women. And so two kind of things coming out of that. One is how does a big organisation really deal with these issues? That’s a relatively small one, but it was how do you deal with those issues? And secondly, how do you kind of anticipate them going in?
JW : That’s, that’s a great question. How do you anticipate them I think, I mean, it’s, you always have an idea of what you’re gonna get into in each of the country. So there’ll be a good underlying of where the challenges are. Now, from a personal point of view, I think the rightsholders should do a much better job of the due diligence into the cities and places that are getting awarded. And those should be shared with the sponsors so that they can have a bit of a heads up one and two, maybe you can start to drive change. So Japan’s good example so if you think a lot of diversity and inclusion that was a challenge within within that culture and in that market, and this was what I did off the back of it was actually we drove a lot of the campaign and some of the assets we created. There has been a great example of the the opening ceremonies was we use that to really educate and drive a much better awareness of diversity inclusion. So you use that to try and impact change within within the country. So I can say that, not because of what I did, I think it was also to do with the 15 in the but there was a 15% increase in awareness across Japan. about diversity and inclusion over that period again, so that was because of multiple activities that were taking place. Off the back, if you could do that collaboratively and smarter. As far as rightholder and sponsors. You can have a fundamental better impact on changing certain pieces in society for the better. Does that make sense?
Q : Yeah, it does makes me think you know, partly, what I understood was coke had this. These the model used to be the seller central team with cherry and manual, and they would kind of educate markets to do bring up bring on their own GM, as you know, happened in the UK. And that pattern was the model was to develop those competencies internally. But but obviously you carried on and then you effectively German in Rio, or at least at the having a huge degree of authority and similarly in Tokyo, so I’m kind of curious why that model changed. And secondly, I think there’s something there possibly about you being in Coca Cola in Tokyo and your awareness of diversity inclusion, because I spoke to a lot of Japanese brands in Tokyo and they were not gonna be driving that. You know, they’re the same they’ve got about your name that stands out and gets hammered down. You don’t do anything which is going to set you apart.
JW : Yeah, I think. Yeah, they probably we weren’t. We weren’t, I think towards the end. And I think that we the 15 campaign was a good example of how we started to get other Japanese brands in to support the campaign. I remember speaking to the city and then saying, Hey, would you support this? I’m like, Yeah, well, we’re all over and then now this came on and that was always one of the things with Coke is oh, what’s coke in and do and then others kind of follow suit? In terms of the answer to the model, the model never really changed because there was always it was always people move into the idea was always to lift and shift, you know, experience into the market. So you would have the kind of helicopter from from Atlanta, and they would move people. I think it was just I became quite consistent over a number of games, which does help because it allows that relationship both with the IOC and the local Organising Committee. You add value to that to them because you you share knowledge and I think that’s the other point of it. It’s so important to share that knowledge, too, because when you like it or not, the Olympics is about you know, it’s not just about us being successful. You everyone’s got to be successful. And Sally and I will have done this military day in London. It’s only successful if all of the sponsors are successful. And that’s about what you’re driving there’s a greater, greater impact or a greater, you’re doing better, rather than the kind of slightly selfish kind of thing is just about me. So I don’t think the model massively changed. I think we’re not as much experience, but But yeah, it’s the same same kind of idea.
Q : Moving on to another topic, James, I know it’s something that you will, no doubt, endless conversations with the IOC and the IPC around, but around sustainability and the impact of that I know that’s been, you know, so London, it wasn’t fair to say as Potter topic as it is. Now, by a long way. In Paris, it’s likely to be a very different game. On that basis. What do you think the IMCs role is instead of making the game more sustainable?
JW : Yes, I do have a point of view and do I think so currently, I think the IOC is very good about making this the Organising local organising committees problem, rather than them building a long term or a long term solution to the problem. So for them, it’s very easy to kind of go well, it’s not up it’s your organising committees problem to solve because we were up here in the helicopter across the top. And a good example of that is Paris actually if you look at it from Paris, Paris is very good. They came out they went you know what we want to make this plastic free games and all credit to Paris. You know, it’s the reality is, Is that realistic. Now, if the IOC really wanted to make fundamental changes in sustainability, you want to write a 10 year plan that takes in all of the games in that 10 years and go each time we’re going to reduce our plastic by 25% every single game, because then by the time we get to the 10, you know we get to La we’re now pass it through. So the differences is now Paris’s having to roll back some of these big targets and go you know, well, sorry, we can’t deliver this because and that’s not because of the one to try it. That’s the clear thing. Like there are lots of people that do want to make this one sustainable, but without the clear leadership as to how we’re going to get there. How do you get there together? Over a period of time is where you’re going to get to a solution. So do one thing, see if see, you know, you know, this isn’t about you know, me. I think the OSI does phenomenal, great things in many different places. Do I think they need to be more involved in that kind of targets of how you change this over time? That a potentially on now? Yes.
Q : I get a really interesting point that I’ve not really thought about it in that way. Before in those cycles you know, you get out of political cycles you get out of a decision making cycles even corporate cycles, which can be some very short term is the IOC if it was gonna take it seriously century does have a long term lens it’s one of the few constituencies that can write a 12 year plan with some competence, presumably.
JW: Yeah, I mean, you look at the danger because you look at the Winter Olympics was the reasons that I heard that I 2050. There will only be five cities in the world can host the Winter Olympics. That’s a big problem. So you need to be part of that solution and quickly, and be partnering with the white people to withdraw constantly and they’ve got some great sponsors that can help that in terms of hydrogen, all these kinds of things, but you’ve got to connect it all. You can’t just kind of sit back and watch it and hope that it all comes together because that’s just not how you’re going to drive change. You’ve got to play an active role. I’m sure they probably feel that they
Q : Just thinking more broadly around the sort of impact of major events. Generally, there was so much discussion around issues surrounding the World Cup and human rights issues, the environmental impacts of construction and everything else. How do you adjust or integrate or deal with those issues? Because you’ll always start find somebody somewhere with a complaint or an issue about the staging of an event but recently that’s really become much more polarised and I think Qatar and the World Cup was an example of that. Does it impact what the sort of decisions that an organisation that makes
JW : 100% I think, I would say I’m well versed in radical IMCR training, incident management crisis resolution. So so the problem is, is that the more you have that the more it takes away? From your ability to execute and activate whatever the event is, or whatever the sponsorship is, because if you’re trying to play, like I can’t say this, I need to say this, you’re constantly coming up with it, because that’s what’s going to be the question from the media like, Well, how do you spot this? What do you do about this? And and I think that’s where it takes away from it. And I think this is where we start to lose the power of Sport and Sport sponsorship because it’s getting lost in the politics and the corruption and the abuse and all this kind of stuff. It’s lost where it has its most power and that’s the different you got to understand where you’re playing into or not. And as a sponsor this is why it’s going to become
The power of sport and sponsorship because it’s getting lost in the politics and the corruption and the abuse and all this kind of stuff. It’s lost where it has its most power. And that’s the different you got to understand where you’re playing into or not. And this is, this is why it’s going to become more challenging for us because I mean, if you look at an A good example of this, I used to Canada hockey last year last $24 million worth of sponsorship in a month because of what was going on in the abuse within that Federation. So then sponsors walked away. Now at some point, all of these functions are going to have a tipping point that goes you know, well, I’m spending more time apologising and justifying what I’m doing, versus me actively wanting to make a positive impact in Sport and Sport making positive impact in society. One’s going to balance out the other and suddenly you’re going to have people going, You know what, this is too much like hard work. Yeah, no, I absolutely understand that. It’s going to be really interesting to see how the next 10 years play out with this subject, I think and then just a question for me, I guess,
Q : The top programme and the sort of construct of it is it’s still my questions. I really, is it still fit for purpose? Is 10 years too long to sign up to be a sponsor? What’s your perspective?
JW : I think I think it’s definitely under pressure. I think there are positives with it. I think there was some points it was positive inclusion of the IPC. So I think that does because it helps drive better inclusion within that and it helps with the IPT. I don’t know whether the deal really takes helps everyone in that deal. I think some people did better out of it than others. But I think that the problem is is a 10 year deal is difficult, and I also think there’s a point that 10 years does sometimes allow for maybe a little bit of laziness, because you need to work. It’s like it’s like a marriage. You’ve got to keep working at this. You’ve got to keep going what’s happening, everything changes and in the world that we’re changing now. Things are changing so much quicker than they ever change before from one year to the other, whether it’s digital on this. And so unless you can change the way you structure as I said before, if it’s a cookie cutter, what I bought 10 years ago is not going to be any good to me in 10 years time. So how do you evolve that? How do you change that with that kind of level of investment and I think they need to look at the way and I think this is across the board not just the IOC I think this is in sponsorship deals anyway, there has to be an evolution to how you approach this because there is more sports than ever there’s sponsors that are in and out and then you guys taught recently there’s certain categories will get taken in and out. But eventually you’re going to run out of money. So what we’ve got to do is what happens is there’s too much money going to the wrong places because we’re cutting the grass roots piece if we don’t start to see that continuing in that way. We’re not going to be able to have a sports industry because we’re not going to have the people coming up that are going to be playing it so. So we think do. Again, I still think the IOC does a lot of great things. And I do think there are some real positives for long term deals, if you can drive them in a way that involve with what’s happening in the world. And I think that’s difficult. Because commercial guys, we’ll set this up in the same way. Here’s what here’s my target. This is how much money I need to get in. I need to sign the deal. After that, not my problem. It’s the relationship team who sought that out. And I think that’s where we’ve got to try and evolve that relationship. It’s got to be more collaborative. We got to talk more about partnership, rather than here’s a number here it is now I know for recently and I’ve spoken to people recently, the commercial teams have gone up and signed deals, offered loads of stuff, and then the team who’s delivering it code. I’m sorry, you’ve you’ve agreed to what and they’re like oh, yeah, okay, yeah. Can you deliver that? So I think there’s got to be a lot more than that. We’ve got a lot more listening, a lot more due diligence, and we’ve got to get better at it.
Q : I’ve got questions about the difference between FIFA and the IOC sounds of just culturally or how the what it’s like, you know, how a World Cup cycle differs from an Olympic one from somebody who has not been involved in either so my knowledge is probably a lot more based on the idea the Olympic kind of merry go round versus the FIFA one but I think for me, I think the IOC does try to actively make a difference in what it does.
JW : So I do believe that it plays a very difficult role do I think that it can play it better? I think that’s the same with everything for me always do better. For me. I think I’m confused with FIFA at the moment the reason Saudi visit Saudi thing was I’m sorry, you missed that. Like for me, I’m like, How did how did you even think that was? I mean, there’s there’s a bit about being, you know, blind or deaf to what’s going on around you. Fundamental like as a sponsor at that level playing such a leadership role. In one of the big the biggest sports in the world.
I’m just shocked by that so and the other thing massive the big cultural differences FIFA and the local Organising Committee the palace still sits with FIFA, whereas for the IOC blitz a little bit more of a local Organising Committee have sometimes we’ll get into the game. So there is a very difference in that. So at some point as you get closer to the Olympics, maybe the ice who doesn’t have as much power as maybe the local organising committee because you’re in massive activation mode, whereas with FIFA, you still got magic Qatar there was a few last minute things that happened in the run up to that which probably I don’t know who was in control. But again, you’ve still got a bit more of that power at the top, but I think three Fair has a lot to do in terms of improvement. But again, that’s my point of view. Not to say I’m sure FIFA does a lot of things and they do invest a lot of things. Around the world. They do do good things. But again, it’s about improvement. I mean, especially in this day and age you know you can’t make slip ups like that.
Q : What do we think about women’s football and FIFA the relationship. It just feels increasingly that it doesn’t feel like it’s the right place. But I don’t know what the real world implications would be of women’s football,in inverted commas, stepping out and doing it outside of the pack. It’s a fragile thing that people are assuming is just going to blossom. But these things never just blossom. They have to be supported at a granular level. I just don’t think it’s in FIFA’s DNA to do it properly. What do you think?
JW : Yeah, I think the whole women’s sport thing is such an interesting one for me because the one thing I would say is like stop copying men’s sport because actually you can see that it’s got problems in it. It’s an interesting to see when could they step away from FIFA and we’ve seen in other sports, you know the W Series is a good example as to what happens when you try and do something on the side that seemed to be together and then suddenly, you know, there’s still a culture at some of these Federation’s at a level that is still unfortunately quite dated. And that you know, just doesn’t doesn’t fit with where they’re going. So, I’d love to say yes, let’s go for it. Let’s take women’s sport and I think they could do some fantastic things. And I really do believe that and it’s good to see that the momentum is really picking up it was always one of my fears with the pandemic that I thought women’s sport would get damaged the most by it because it would go backwards, but actually, I think we’re coming out in a very positive way from it.
Yeah, I think it might you know, I’ve worked with FIFA in the past and and they’ve got some cracking people that, you know, really, really has tried to drive the women’s football agenda. But it’s tough, you know, the disproportionality of football globally. The Women’s piece is minute relatively, but it’s growing.
When you look at the audiences and this is where I think it’s so powerful with women’s sport is there’s such a great opportunity to activate and do different things with the sponsorship. And they’ve opened up recently, what is it 1.8 million audience of just female sport fans, and that’s huge. And that’s like, great. Can you tap into that because you’ve you opened up then a whole world of different sponsors, different relationships, different values, you know, value based content is going to become much more important. So I think there’s a whole world of that. And I think that’s super exciting to be working on because that’s where I think there’s some really interesting stuff that’s going to come up and kind of
Q : In a way, we’re all facing this, this tension between the traditional model of success and sustained sustainable growth. And quite often the tensions are not really reconciled because we want growth, but actually to do it sustainably is often a very different route. As for Coke, you’re still producing plastic and you’re still the world’s largest producer of plastic bottles and that’s linked to your business model and your profitability. But at the same time, sustainability arrives in the other direction. James, do you see that as a growing problem for Coca Cola and the Olympics?
JW : Obviously, I can only give you my point of view as a non Coke employee and you know, Coke is a style of packaging that has been demanded by consumers in the way that they want to consume stuff. So is coke doing everything that can to try and address this problem? Yes. But when you come back to this is about the difference. And when he talks about sponsorships industries, you’ve got to evolve the model. You’ve got to evolve and so as a business and any business we’ll be doing this. You guys been talking about petrochemicals and stuff like that. They’re all going to be starting to look at evolving that model. Why? Because if you can use Kodak, for example, if you don’t evolve with the time you don’t exist, so every business in the back of their mind. Where’s the next stage? So yeah, they can’t suddenly go today. We’re gonna stop doing this, because it’s just not realistic. Are they putting all of their efforts into evolving that and finding what the next thing is? Yes. The question for me is, is sponsorship doing the same? So is there is there a table this is where it should be a table smart people sitting around the table game? How do we all do this collectively, to evolve the model, rather than sticking in the same place is trying to do the same thing, time and time again and expecting a different outcome, which, which quite frankly, doesn’t happen. So at some point, we’ve got a table a bigger deal. That gets this on the table because it’s going to impact the future of the sport industry. So hopefully that will happen. I think there’s a few. There’s a few smart people trying to put this together I believe.
Q : We had Thierry Borra and Ricardo Fort on here, both long term people and what’s it like leaving Coke? What’s it like when you hand your badges? And most of what you and the question is leading to what you’re doing next. But what what’s that? What’s that process like?
JW : So I worked for Coke for 16 years, so it’s fair to say I’m probably a little bit institutionalised, and I struggle with when doing these kinds of conversations and when I talk to people is not saying us versus them. So so there is definitely that takes a bit of coaching for yourself and that change is good, right?
Q : You make it sound like the Shawshank Redemption!
JW : Look, I love it and there’s positives and negatives. It’s a great it’s an amazing, great things and stuff like that. But it also got to a point where I delivered a lot of things that I really felt I’d given everything that I could give and things like that and the reason I left was for death, various different reasons. One of them was a big, personal reason to come back and help the customer not. So there’s that sign. But then also just for me personally, I mean, if if all of the successes over those 16 years, it’s time to challenge me and do things slightly differently. Where do I start to look at adding value in different places?
You know, Coke is fantastic, but it also can become I’m not saying easy, but you know, you can get used to it and it’s doing the same thing. So this was a chance for me to also see what else I can do outside of code. And that’s that’s important.
Q : You make it sound like the Shawshank Redemption!
JW : Look, I love it and there’s positives and negatives. It’s a great it’s an amazing, great things and stuff like that. But it also got to a point where I delivered a lot of things that I really felt I’d given everything that I could give and things like that and the reason I left was for death, various different reasons. One of them was a big, personal reason to come back and help the customer not. So there’s that sign. But then also just for me personally, I mean, if if all of the successes over those 16 years, it’s time to challenge me and do things slightly differently. Where do I start to look at adding value in different places?
You know, Coke is fantastic, but it also can become I’m not saying easy, but you know, you can get used to it and it’s doing the same thing. So this was a chance for me to also see what else I can do outside of code. And that’s that’s important.
Okay, well listen, good luck with it. And we’ll hear more much more about that I’m sure as we as we go forward.