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COCA-COLA AND PANINI LAUNCH FIRST DIGITAL TRADING PLATFORM: OFFICIALLY LICENSED FOOTBALL STICKERS FOR 2006 FIFA WORLD CUP GERMANY™

Exclusive Features for Player Sticker Sets
Collected only through www.coca-cola.com/football;
Global Online Trading Community Established in at Least 10 Languages

ATLANTA, Ga., and MODENA, Italy, May 24, 2006 - The international pastime of collecting precious stickers of one's football heroes is going all-digital for the first time.

Being able to collect and trade player stickers electronically becomes reality today with the global launch of a new Web community for football fans and collectors by The Coca-Cola Company, the world's largest beverage company, and the Panini Group, the world leader in the sticker and trading card marketplace.

The first digital platform for exclusively collecting and trading Panini virtual football stickers features lineups from national teams in the 2006 FIFA World Cup Germany™. Once an online member collects the small number of featured players from a participating FIFA World Cup™ team, stickers of that squad's entire roster automatically become part of the collection, which can be kept in a complementary virtual album and referred to over and over. The entire Panini 2006 FIFA World Cup Germany™ Official Licensed Sticker Collection consists of more than 500 players competing in this year's tournament.

Approximately 100 football stars - an average of three or four from a selection of national teams - are featured as the keys to collecting the entire Panini 2006 FIFA World Cup Germany™ sticker set, which includes qualified teams for the tournament this June-July. The tradable stickers in the unique Panini collection showcased through Coca-Cola online are extraordinarily rich, with deeper information not found in any other series in the sticker world. Included are bios and technical performance measurements of the players, their FIFA World Cup™ statistics, photogallery images, and links to related sites. In fact, records of players in the tradable group will be updated throughout the 2006 FIFA World Cup™.

For countless football fans around the world, any season - and especially a year including the FIFA World Cup™ - is incomplete without the latest collection of the ubiquitous Panini football stickers. Since the early 1960s, the annual Panini series has set the standard in football player collectibles, typically engaging young people in a lifelong pursuit and providing wistful memories for the more-mature, nostalgic audiences.

How It Works
Fans can register to collect and trade Panini's virtual football stickers through the Coca-Cola "We All Speak Football" Web site (www.coca-cola.com/football) or by linking to this platform through local Coca-Cola Web sites in several countries. At least 10 language options are available, among them English, German, French, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Dutch, Italian, Greek, Japanese, and Korean. Trader messages are automatically translated using application technology from Tokenzone Inc.

Through the Coca-Cola football Web pages, visitors have several avenues for amassing stickers and searching out other collectors, for sticker trading. After registering for the Panini 2006 FIFA World Cup Germany™ Official Licensed Sticker Collection, members automatically receive eight stickers. Every four hours, three new, randomly selected stickers are posted under an "Autodeposit" tab. When participants start receiving duplicate stickers, it's time to start trading digitally, using the valuable duplicates as bartering currency.

The more features visited and games played at the "We All Speak Football" Coca-Cola site, the more stickers members can collect, to eventually fill their screensaver team albums. Additional ways to collect the stickers at www.coca-cola.com/football include:

  • Having friends register on the Panini Virtual Sticker page, which also expands the universe of collectors with whom to trade
  • Predicting match winners in the 2006 FIFA World Cup™
  • Taking the FIFA World Cup™ Trivia Challenge
  • Watching football-themed videos from the new Coca-Cola "Rivalidades" advertising campaign
  • Playing the "Super Shooter" and "Rivalidades Hotshot" online games
  • Downloading wallpaper and screensavers
Once you collect the handful of player stickers featured from a particular national team, the digital stickers for all players from that team are unlocked, to fill in an entire team page. When a user completes the Panini collection, a free screensaver is provided.

Users can also join forces with other virtual sticker traders around the world, for team collecting.

"This puts a digital face on the popular tradition of Panini sticker collecting, while adding another interactive element to the 'We All Speak Football' platform for Coca-Cola," said Ricardo Fort, director, Global Football Marketing, The Coca-Cola Company. "It's a very natural fit to the underlying 'breaking down barriers' theme of the platform, since this new community site enables fans to crisscross national borders and share their mutual passion for the sport through sticker trading and football conversation."

"We are very proud to have developed this program with Coke," said Antonio Allegra, director, New Media, the Panini Group. "For the first time ever, after 45 years of history, a Panini collection will be entirely showcased online, enabling customers to experience the excitement of the 'physical' product - search, collect, trade - with the additional features available only in a virtual environment. For this 'première' we chose one of our top-selling and global products: the Panini 2006 FIFA World Cup™ Official Licensed Sticker Collection, which will be on sale during the same period in more than 110 countries."

At the frequently expanding site www.coca-cola.com/football visitors can check up on the latest FIFA/Coca-Cola World Ranking for men's national teams; download football-themed screensavers and wallpaper; test their goal-firing skills in the "Super Shooter" and "Rivalidades Hotshot" games; access exclusive previews of new "We All Speak Football" Coca-Cola television commercials; and revisit images from the recently completed, global FIFA World Cup™ Trophy Tour by Coca-Cola.

The Panini 2006 FIFA World Cup Germany™ Official Licensed Sticker Collection will be available through the online Coca-Cola "We All Speak Football" platform until Sept. 15, 2006.

The Panini Group
The Panini Group, with headquarters in Modena, Italy, and branches in Europe and Latin America, is the world leader in the sticker and trading card marketplace and one of the foremost European publishers of comics and publications for children and teenagers. The company also has a development program in the area of new media, under the trademark Panini Interactive.

The Panini Group has 640 employees. It recorded sales in 2005 of over €400 million (nearly $500 million USD) and distributes its products in more than 110 countries.

Tokenzone Inc.
Tokenzone Inc., based in White Plains, N.Y., invented Internet-based collecting and trading and is considered the digital collectibles authority worldwide. For the Panini 2006 FIFA World Cup Germany™ Official Licensed Sticker Collection through www.coca-cola.com/football, Tokenzone developed the digital sticker album application that manages the creation, distribution and exchange of digital stickers and enables the building of an online community of football followers. The Tokenzone programming automatically translates user trading messages to create worldwide, virtual sticker trading.

The Coca-Cola Company
The Coca-Cola Company is the world's largest beverage company. Along with Coca-Cola, recognized as the world's most-valuable brand, the Company markets four of the world's top five soft drink brands, including Diet Coke, Fanta and Sprite, and a wide range of other beverages, including diet and light soft drinks, waters, juices and juice drinks, teas, coffees and sports drinks. Through the world's largest beverage distribution system, consumers in more than 200 countries enjoy the Company's beverages at a rate exceeding 1.3 billion servings each day. For more information about The Coca-Cola Company, please visit the Web site www.coca-cola.com.

NOTE TO EDITORS: Media can retrieve a sample digital image of the Panini virtual football stickers to accompany this story by visiting our Press Center Image Gallery.




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Participating Coca-Cola Web Sites, by Country, For First Virtual Football Trading Stickers
(subject to change)
Country Web Address
Argentina

Australia

Austria

Belgium

Brazil

Canada

Chile

Colombia

Costa Rica

Czech Republic

Denmark

Dominican Republic

Ecuador

El Salvador

Finland

France

Greece

Guatemala

Honduras

Iceland

India

Italy

Japan

Korea

Luxembourg

Malaysia

Mexico

Netherlands

Nicaragua

Norway

Panama

Paraguay

Peru

Sweden

Switzerland

Turkey

United States



Venezuela

www.coca-cola.com.ar

www.coke.com/football

www.coke.at/WM2006

www.coca-cola.be

www.cocacola.com.br

www.coke.com/football

www.cocacola.cl

www.coca-cola.com.co

www.coca-cola.co.cr

www.coca-cola.cz

www.coca-cola.dk

www.coca-cola.com.do

www.coca-cola.com.ec

www.coca-cola.com.sv

www.coca-cola.fi

www.coca-cola.fr

www.coca-cola.gr

www.coca-cola.com.gt

www.coca-cola.com.hn

www.coca-cola.is

www.myenjoyzone.com/football

www.coca-cola.it

www.cocacola.co.jp

www.cokeplay.com

www.coca-cola.lu

www.coke.com.my

www.coca-cola.com.mx

www.cocacola.nl/coke360

www.coca-cola.com.ni

www.coca-cola.no

www.coca-cola.com.pa

www.coke.com/football

www.coke.com/football

www.coca-cola.se

www.mycokemusic.ch

www.icoke.com.tr

www.mycokerewards.com

www.mycoke.com

www.coca-cola.com.ve