COKE SAYS TEAM SYDNEY DEAL IS ‘THE REAL THING’

Soft drink giant Coca-Cola has finally hit back at suggestions that it is not really backing Team Sydney.

By MARK FOGARTY

Local bottler Coca-Cola Amatil contacted AUTO ACTION to clarify the deal, which sees one of the ex-Tekno Autosport squad’s entries in full Coke livery.

Following unusual contact from team owner Jonathon Webb, we spoke with Carly Young, head of sponsorship and partnership at CCA.

Young declared: “We have a commercial arrangement with Team Sydney”.

While she was unable to expand on the arrangement, she was adamant the Coca-Cola branding was an official CCA association.

“We have a commercial arrangement with Team Sydney directly for one car,” Young insisted.

Team Sydney ran two Commodores at the Adelaide 500, with now-departed James Courtney’s car racing in Boost Mobile colours and Chris Pither’s entry running in full Coke livery.

Maintaining it was a “direct sponsorship”, she pointed out that Coca-Cola staged a “Share A Coke” promotion around the primary backing of Pither’s Commodore in Adelaide.

Known as an activation in marketing speak, it followed CCA’s unsuccessful attempt to do a Coca-Cola promotion at the Supercars season launch on Sydney Harbour last month.

Courtney’s car was displayed at the launch in full Coke red-and-white livery, but until now, there has been no official endorsement from CCA, which is the licensed Coca-Cola bottler in Australia, New Zealand and other parts of the South Pacific

Coca-Cola Amatil is one of the world’s five major bottlers of Coke drinks. The Coca-Cola Company is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, in the USA.

CCA is also the local agent for many other well-known non-alcoholic beverages, including Monster Energy Drink, which sponsors Cam Waters’s Ford Mustang, and Jim Beam bourbon.

Coca-Cola is the official soft drink of Supercars and Jim Beam is the official hard liquor, giving CCA pourage rights at Supercars events.

Those deals have been running for several years, while Jim Beam was also Dick Johnson Racing’s primary sponsor in the mid-to-late 2000s.

“We’ve been involved with the V8s for a long time,” Young said.

However, she struggled to distinguish those straight commercial agreements from the ostensible sponsorship of Team Sydney.

Young maintained that as Coca-Cola’s South Pacific area bottler, CCA didn’t need authorisation from Coke HQ in the States for regional sponsorships.

“Global doesn’t have to approve what we do locally,” she said.

Coca-Cola’s involvement with Team Sydney has been the subject of conjecture since Supercars season launch.

Team principal Jonathon Webb finally contacted AA following our report on Saturday of Courtney’s announcement that he was quitting the team.

We reported that our understanding was that the Coca-Cola backing was linked with convenience store distributor United Convenience Buyers, a major Coke customer.

The boss of UCB is Darren Parke, who is Pither’s mentor/manager.

Webb had little to say on his team’s apparent crisis, but he did inform us that CCA’s Young would contact us to explain Coca-Cola’s involvement.

“Everything’s moving ahead,” he said. “I’ll comment more once things are settled.”

It was the first direct contact we’d had from Webb since the Team Sydney saga began and, true to his word, CCA’s Young called me soon after, confirming the Coke backing as best she could.

We had earlier reached out to CCA’s media department, corresponding with the nominated spokesman.

However, our enquiry about the extent of Coca-Cola’s involvement with Team Sydney was just two days before he left CCA.

While he indicated he would follow up, unsurprisingly, we never heard back from him – nor from his nominated successor.

Young suggested our enquiry got lost in the transition and undertook to get CCA’s comms team to get back to us with a more detailed explanation of the deal with Team Sydney.

When – and if – they respond, we’ll let you know what they say.

In the meantime, we are happy to accept that Coca-Cola’s sponsorship of Team Sydney is ‘The Real Thing’ – Coke’s classic slogan in the 1970s.

But without drivers fewer than two weeks from the next round at the Australian Grand Prix, it’s not looking good for the apparently still Gold Coast-based Team Sydney.

We await developments with keen interest…

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