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Drinks

Consumer Goods Forum Summit: Networking in Paris

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Consumer Goods Forum Summit: Networking in Paris

The full impact of the Consumer Goods Forum Global Summit was impressively illustrated when well over 1,000 people gathered at the Coca-Cola opening cocktail party in the ballroom of Le Grand Hotel near the Paris Opera House.

Coca-Cola are well-known hosts of many industry events around the world, as well as sponsoring some of the world's great sporting events such as the World Cup and the Olympics, where Coke's hospitality is renowned.

While the Coke executives made sure that Coke was highly visible and the drink of choice at their cocktail party, there was no shortage of fine French champagne. After the cocktail party, some of the top financial services companies hosted dinner parties for their guests. Sleek, luxurious buses transported their guests to some of the most iconic dining places in Paris.

Two of the most interesting venues were the Tour Eiffel, where S.C. Johnson hosted a big party for their distinguished guests, and the Musée d'Orsay, where Chicago-based consultants AT Kearney had arranged for their guests to dine on the rooftop, which offers spectacular views of Paris.

The Kearney partners had also organised a private viewing of the Van Gogh exhibiton and the museum's world-renowned collection of impressionist painting. The general consensus was that the Kearney event was a social tour de force.

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ESM thought of the day: Should Coke buy a small champagne house?

One wonders if Mutar Kent, the formidable and charismatic Coca-Cola CEO, might consider buying a small French champagne house.

Considering the amount of champagne on offer at the Coca-Cola company's opening cocktail party last evening, and extrapolating the scale of their entertaining, which is world-renowned for its generosity, buying a small champagne house might not be the worst idea in the world.

Apart from the Coca-Cola portfolio, the company has 3,500 brands, many of which are category leaders in their own right.

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One suspects if they were to buy a champagne house it would not be long before the brand would become extraordinarily successful.

© 2014 - European Supermarket Magazine by Kevin Kelly and Peter Donnelly

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