Olympic mascots to help firms cash in By Dai Yan (China Daily) Updated: 2005-11-15 06:40
"They are selling extremely well," said Xie Hong, a press
officer from Coca-Cola (China) Beverages Ltd, who was talking about how 4,800
special Beijing Olympics mascot cans placed in Xidan Grandpacific Department
Store sold out in just one hour.
Salesgirls arrange
a set of five doll mascots for the 2008 Olympics in a special store in
Nanjing, east China's Jiangsu province, November 11, 2005. Beijing chose
five stylised doll mascots for the 2008 Olympic games on Friday
representing a panda, a Tibetan antelope, a swallow, a fish and the spirit
of the Olympic flame. [Reuters] |
Coca-Cola unveiled the special cans immediately after Beijing announced its
five cartoon mascots for the 2008 Olympic games. More than 1.6 million special
Coca-Cola cans are being sold in 21 cities across China.
The scene was the same for other products bearing the special Olympic mascot.
In many big shopping centres people crowded into shops selling Olympic products,
with some shelves empty after only one day of business.
There are more than 100 mascot-related products, including pens, toys, hats,
bags and other souvenirs. These are on sale at 188 authorized venues across the
country.
Prices vary, with fluorescent pens on sale for 8 yuan (US$1) and souvenir
badges, some made of gold, going for more than 100,000 yuan (US$1,233).
Huang Wei, an expert on the Olympic economy, estimated the revenue from
selling mascot-related products could reach 4 billion yuan (US$493 million).
"I have looked at the markets from the Sydney and Barcelona Olympic games,
but I have never seen such enthusiasm as with Chinese people," Huang said.
And as Beijing has five mascots, the revenue is expected to be bigger, Huang
added.
David Brooks, Olympic project manager at Coca Cola, thinks that five mascots
is a good marketing ploy.
"The mascot product market for the Beijing Games should be much bigger than
previous Olympic games as China has a much larger population," he said.
Brooks said the company will have more mascot-related activities in the
future.
By August this year nearly 600 Beijing Olympic licensed products had gone on
sale, with sales totalling more than 600 million yuan (US$74 million).
(China Daily 11/15/2005 page10)
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