More than 2 million people have visited Coca-Cola’s 25 Olympic experience centers across China since the Games began, said Scott McCune, Coca-Cola’s vice president of worldwide sports, entertainment and licensing.

Coke set up 25 Olympic “Shuang” Zones across China as a way to connect more potential consumers to the brand and its Olympic partnership. Many of the experiential centers are set up in high population areas — like a Beijing mall — and offer visitors the chance to watch the Olympics on giant LED screens, sample Coke product and have their photo taken with the 2008 Olympic torch.

The centers are a cornerstone in Coke’s effort to turn its Olympic sponsorship into gold with consumers. Two weeks into the Games, the company is encouraged by the results.
“This is clearly one strategy that’s working,” McCune said.

The centers are built around Coke’s “Shuang” marketing concept, which it launched nearly two years ago. The Mandarin phrase means complete physical, emotional and spiritual refreshment.

In China, Pepsi-Cola is No. 1 — but early results show Coke’s Olympic push, which began in early 2007, is eating into Pepsi’s lead. Last year, the Coca-Cola brand claimed 22 percent of the country’s carbonated soft drink market, up half a percentage point from 2006, according to Beverage World.

“We believe it will become the No. 1 brand in China, and we think the marketing behind the Olympics will be accountable for that,” McCune said.

Two of those “Shuang” zones are set up outside the Olympic Green, allowing Coke to reach consumers who can’t enter the Olympic Green where Coke’s sponsor pavilion is set up because they don’t have tickets to events on the Green.

To add to the appeal of one of those “Shuang” experiences, which is at a Beijing Mall called “The Place,” Coke has invited in special guests every night. At 8:08 each evening, a celebrity-studded “Golden Moment Celebration” features new Olympic Games medalists and celebrities, including Jackie Chan, LeBron James and Yao Ming.

CCTV and a local Internet video company have been on-site at “The Place” filming nightly and sending out eight minutes of video across China, which increases Coke’s reach.

As Coke comes out of the Olympics, it will stick with the Shuang theme it cultivated in the run up to the Games, but it will replace the Olympic imagery it has used with more everyday images of people enjoying Coke, McCune said.

Coke expects to have completed a thorough review of its marketing efforts in China and 64 other key countries by November, but early signs suggest that the company’s efforts to leverage its Olympic partnership have paid off.

“We’ve seen changes in attitude and behavior,” McCune said. “Does it come to a pinnacle during the two weeks of the Games? We’d like to think so.”