Today, with a team of both relative newcomers and company veterans,
including lieutenant Wendy Clark, senior VP-integrated marketing
communications and capabilities, Coca-Cola is it again. It's a
marketing model not just for mega multinationals looking to share
best practices from around the world but also a case study for how
upstart and mid-size brands, of which Coca-Cola has amassed many,
can use creative stunts and strategic partnerships to get a lot
done on a smaller budget.
And 2011 was a year for the record books.
Diet Coke bypassed Pepsi to become the country's
No. 2 soda brand, under the leadership of Katie Bayne,
president-general manager sparkling beverages, and Beatriz Perez,
former CMO-Coca-Cola North America and the company's current chief
sustainability officer. The company added not one, but two
billion-dollar brands with Del Valle and Minute Maid Pulpy -- the
latter, born in China, is the company's first billion-dollar brand
to have launched in an emerging market. Coca-Cola topped Interbrand's
most-valuable global brands list for the 12th year. And the
company's flagship brand demonstrated that it only gets better with
age: Coke is leading the company's growth, with volume up 3%
worldwide year-to-date.
"Because of the scale and size of Coca-Cola, we have to have a
culture that encourages us to share the learnings and failures, the
good, the bad and the ugly," said Mr. Tripodi. "We've got a team of
people around the world that is less concerned with getting credit
and more concerned with getting behind a great idea."
There have been plenty of those this year. Fanta's volume is up
3% year-to-date on the heels of "Less Serious," a global campaign
steered by Jonathan Mildenhall, VP-global advertising strategy and
content, that runs in 190 countries. Minute Maid's quirky "Wake Up
Your MMOJO" campaign from Doner took orange juice beyond the breakfast
table, attracting men and young adults. Diet Coke teamed with
StyleCaster, introduced a fashionable limited-edition can and
launched new 15-second spots -- all part of a beefed-up marketing
calendar, as Alison Lewis, senior-VP North America marketing, looks
to keep the soda in its No. 2 slot.
And a new global teen-focused campaign, Coca-Cola Music, kicked
off with "24hr Session," which saw Maroon 5 hole up in a London
studio to create a new original song. Shay Drohan, senior-VP
sparkling brands, has taken that campaign to more than 130
markets.
But that doesn't mean smaller brands have been forgotten. A
tongue-in-cheek online video, from agency Zambezi, featured Jennifer Aniston
promoting Smartwater and went viral, grabbing nearly 10 million
views on YouTube. Fuze got a nod with its first TV campaign,
handled by Amalgamated.
Coca-Cola's agencies include Wieden & Kennedy, which handles
Coke and Diet Coke; Crispin Porter & Bogusky, which works on
Coke Zero and Vitaminwater; and Ogilvy & Mather, which is working on the
first ad push for Coca-Cola Freestyle and also handles Fanta.
Mr. Tripodi said the company has gotten sharper about how it
thinks about its portfolio and portfolio management, a necessity
given there's more than a dozen ready-to-drink non-alcoholic
beverage categories it can play in. "We don't try to apply the same
mass-marketing, big-brand model against [smaller brands]. Our whole
thinking there is around doing things in an innovative and
different way that takes a smaller budget and amplifies it," he
said. "We're training our marketers and our community -- don't just
say "I can't be successful with this small brand, because I don't
have a big budget.' That's nonsense."
Coca-Cola is also innovating in food service, with the
introduction of Coca-Cola Freestyle, which snagged its first major
national accounts this year. Using micro-dosing technology, the
next-generation soda fountain serves up 125 different flavors of
soft drinks, flavored waters, sports drinks and lemonades and sends
usage data, such as what flavors are most popular at what times of
the day, to Coca-Cola headquarters.
The futuristic Freestyle is just one example of how Coca-Cola
continues to set the agenda. The company attracted attention with
its competitive review for a social-media listening agency. And it
turned heads by taking a minority interest in Music Dealers to help
it discover and license music from popular bands around the
globe.
Most recently, the company teamed up with Leo Burnett to turn more than 1.4
billion Coke cans white to raise awareness and funding for the
World Wildlife Fund's polar-bear conservation efforts. Pio
Schunker, senior VP-integrated marketing platforms, is ensuring
it's one of the company's most-integrated efforts ever.
All of these efforts are examples of the way the company is
coalescing around management's 2020 Vision, which involves doubling
system revenue and more than doubling servings to some 3 billion
per day. It's a daunting goal, considering the company wants to do
in just over 10 years what it took nearly 125 years to
accomplish.
Mr. Tripodi says the company's ability to innovate the product,
the packaging and consumer engagement are what will get Coca-Cola
there. "It gives you some air cover, when you're doing well, to try
things, be bold, be disruptive," he said. "It all ladders up to a
thought process that says [our 2020 Vision] is very achievable, if
we stay disciplined and focused."