Coca-Cola vets launch firm to bridge gap between consultancies and agencies

Former Samsung and Coca-Cola Co. marketer Pio Schunker has joined former Coke and Wieden+Kennedy executive Lee Roth to form a firm that aims to bridge the gap between management consultancies and ad agencies. The Actionists counts Colgate-Palmolive Co. and Kimberly-Clark Corp. among its initial clients. The firm’s approach, according to Schunker, is to combine the analytics of management consultancies with the art brought by agencies. Check out the latest Ad Age events and award programs Schunker said he’s known Roth since their days working at Coca-Cola during “honestly what I consider to be the heyday of Coke marketing.” Roth was director of integrated marketing at Coca-Cola from 2011 to 2014; Schunker was senior VP and head of integrated marketing at the beverage giant from 2003 to 2013. Also read: Ad agencies adapt to brands’ focus on creators Schunker said he’s seen a growing void between management consultants with their analytics and agencies, who he said, “from my viewpoint as a client are becoming increasingly tactical, really about selling that immediate campaign, that immediate product. You have this massive gap in the middle as to how do you connect everything.” Both have experience with agencies and as marketers. Schunker has led marketing at Samsung and Eargo since Coke, while Roth also has been an executive at PayPal and Ogilvy before building the U.S. operation of consulting firm BeenThereDoneThat. Increasingly the best thinkers in marketing are now working as independent consultants, Roth said, while staffing at the consulting giants is increasingly junior. So The Actionists is drawing on a stable of other veteran CMOs, chief strategists and creative leaders, about 10 from each discipline, who work as a confederation with the group rather than as full-time staffers. But Roth said The Actionists is not another fractional CMO firm or creative temp agency, aiming instead at helping develop plans that company staff or agencies can run with. The firm has an à la carte menu of deliverables, such as growth audits, brand architectures, innovation platforms and core creative ideas, that can be bought independently or as a package, but at an agreed-upon upfront price, Roth said. Through a partnership with Evergreen Trading, client firms also can trade distressed assets in return for Actionists consulting work. “Difficult problems require people who have solved them before,” said Parul Bharadwaj, managing director of oral care at Colgate-Palmolive, in a statement. “The Actionists bring us the strategic chops to answer complex business problems because they've been in our shoes.” Media measurement blog Tracking TV, social and digital updates Click here

Coca-Cola vets launch firm to bridge gap between consultancies and agencies

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