"It's cherry-picking the best from all the different agencies," said a source. "Rather than going to five places and five different teams, you have one team."

It is believed that the new unit will house a range of talent disciplines, including account servicing, creative, media planning, communications and online strategy.

"This will be a dedicated team that will last for three years," added another source. "Coca-Cola has to go beyond the traditional ways of doing things, especially in a place like China where distribution is a problem."

The new arrangement has, however, triggered speculation by mainland sources over the brand's relationship with global creative AOR McCann Erickson in China.

Agency representatives declined to comment, while a Coca-Cola spokesperson would only say: "For competitive reasons we never comment on our future marketing campaigns -- that includes our activation of the Beijing Olympics 2008 and how we will organise this campaign."

McCann's Coke business in China is headed by group account director Wasim Basir, who declined to confirm whether he would be joining the new unit.

Coca-Cola is one of 11 current worldwide Olympic partners, along with such names as GE, Lenovo and Visa.

The company is a charter member of the Olympic Partner programme that began in 1986, and boasts the longest continuous relationship with the Olympic movement, having supported every Games since 1928.