PYEONGCHANG, South Korea (AP) – He didn’t get the hashtag quite right on the first try, so they withheld the free stuffed bear he waited in line a half-hour to earn.
“Add play,” the agent said. “It should be #CokePlay.”
On the final night of the Pyeongchang Olympic Games on Sunday evening, this “agent” was policing Daniel Zabek’s Instagram feed to make sure he branded his post to exactly match the corporation’s chosen slogan.
Zabek and hundreds of others stood in a line that snaked around the Olympic Park in the hours before the closing ceremony just for this: to take a photo in front of a corporation’s advertisements and post the pictures on social media with the company’s predetermined hashtag.
In exchange, he would get a stuffed bear, the soda company’s mascot with the brand name embroidered on a red scarf around its neck.