• by Danielle Oster , July 29, 2024

Last week, Coca-Cola and the International Olympics Committee (IOC)  unveiled “Hello World,” a bubbly, upbeat pop song with a simple “yeah, yeah, yeah” (six times) singalong chorus, written by Ryan Tedder and performed by Anderson.Paak and Gwen Stefani, celebrating the Olympic Games.

Released ahead of the 2024 Paris Olympics opening ceremony, the track marks the first collaborative music release in the longstanding partnership between The Coca-Cola Company and the IOC, which dates back some 96 years. The song came together quickly and was designed to have staying power well beyond the closing ceremony in Paris.

Marketing Daily caught up with Josh Burke, global head of music and culture marketing for Coca-Cola, to discuss the company’s approach to music.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Marketing Daily: What led to partnering with these artists specifically for the release of “Hello World”?

Josh Burke: We knew we needed to create a song that would resonate with a global audience, act as a celebration of both our brands, and inspire both music fans and athletes. So we needed to find artists that could bring this to life in a way where people all around the world would feel [the] positive energy.

We approached the creation of the song in a unique way. Typically, when we work on music programs, we find an artist and license an existing song. Sometimes we create bespoke music, but typically more in the style of a jingle.

Our ambition for “Hello World” was to create  a song that wasn't going to be relevant only for 2024 – including continued relevancy for the 2028 LA Olympics, which will mark the 100th year anniversary between The Coca-Cola Company and the IOC.

So we called on Sony Music Publishing CMO Brian Monaco, and ended up connecting with OneRepublic lead singer Ryan Tedder – who is also Grammy-award winning songwriter with this amazing global sound and very open to collaboration.

The brief was very open to interpretation: We asked for a bright, fun, energetic, catchy song that would inspire and bring together music fans worldwide, containing a recognizable hook that could resonate in many languages.

From there, we knew we needed artists who could take the bones of this song and make it their own in an authentic way. We wanted to make sure that the result wouldn’t sound like a jingle or brand song, but actually could be released as a single and treated like any new release.

Gwen Stefani, and Anderson.Paak both have voices that are immediately recognizable and transcend the lyrics on the page. Both artists have incredibly engaged global fan bases that are very different from each other –--which is not only a celebration of Coca-Cola’s legacy in music, but also the spirt of the Olympics where different cultures and communities come together.

How does this activation demonstrate the role of music marketing more broadly in how the company has evolved its marketing strategy in recent years?

As we’ve evolved our marketing these past few years, we’ve started transitioning from a more traditional approach to placing more emphasis on experience-driven marketing.

When we think about the role of music, not only for the Coca-Cola brand, but for the company as a whole, It’s about a more holistic approach to music in marketing. In order to truly connect with audiences, we need to have a robust music ecosystem that not only borrows from music culture but also adds value. We’re trying to collaborate in a manner where we’re acting as partners -- as opposed to simply licensing a song for an ad, or connecting with a celebrity to hold a product and smile for Instagram.

Traditional marketing is still important for how we need to do business, but with music we have evolved into a position where we are aiming to have a true voice within music culture and provide opportunities -- not only for music fans, but also for artists at many levels, including emerging artists. We’ve built this incredible system of music partners over the last few years – including Universal Music Group, who we’ve partnered with on a dozen or more programs.

This has allowed us to evolve in how we approach music at almost every single layer: how we produce songs, work with artists, develop creative for campaigns. We’ve also had a longstanding partnership with Spotify, which recently grew with the development of Spotify AUX,  and work closely with a number of festival partners for in-real-life activations.

Can you elaborate on how the song will be used beyond the initial activation?

The intention is for it be used in the context of not only The Coca-Cola Company’s partnership with the IOC, but also for the Olympics and IOC as a whole. We’ve structured the usage rights to allow very board opportunities for it to be leveraged in different markets – and the song and accompanying music video have already [been used] by a broad cast of partners.

The intention is to continue to grow the song at least through the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, where it will be used across different marketing executions with Coca-Cola and the Olympics.