Heartland China retains Coca-Cola China's out-of-home media account

According to sources close to Coca-Cola's China account, OOH media is around 20-30% of Coke's media budget in China.

Sources add that the media review was exclusively for Coca-Cola's OOH business, and did not affect Starcom and wwwins Consulting, Coke's media and digital agencies in China respectively.

Coca-Cola China's OOH media account covers all of its brands including Coca-Cola, Sprite, Vitaminwater and Minute Maid.

Heartland's account scope has expanded from national planning and buying for four major markets in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen to include five additional new markets like Wuhan, Chengdu, Chongqing, Shenyang and Dalian.

"We appreciate Coca-Cola's continuous trust in Heartland, and will continue to learn and grow in the new media era," says Jay Lin, CEO of Heartland China. "We are committed to create greater success with Coca-Cola beyond the Beijing Olympics, particularly with the expanding opportunities in lower-tier markets in China and new digital OOH advertising offerings."

Last month, Coca-Cola celebrated the arrival of Chinese New Year with a digital campaign that allows users to design their own Coke bottle labels with festive motifs. The online campaign will run on icoke.cn until the end of February.

wwwins Consulting Shanghai was also reponsible for Coke's ‘First Coke of the year’ campaign, which featured Liu Xiang, last year.