Coke will not be an easy nut to crack for Team WPP

Current Coke campaigns are a mish-mash of 'healthy lifestyle' and 'sharing' messaging, and Disneyesque joyful blandness

Danny Rogers
Sunday 16 August 2015 17:33 BST
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Cans of Coca-Cola
Cans of Coca-Cola (Getty Images)

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A major new advertising campaign from Coca-Cola is one of the most significant developments in the marketing world. Coke may no longer be the world’s most valuable brand – Apple now claims that crown – but the 130-year-old fizzy drink represents a bellwether for brands, even popular culture.

Whether it’s a massive truck delivering Coca-Cola for Christmas or that homage to the New Seekers: "I’d like to buy the world a Coke", many of its commercials have become classics. Since 2009 the lead theme in Coke’s advertising has been "Open happiness", created by Wieden & Kennedy and McCann-Erickson, but a just-completed global ad review signals a change in direction.

Last week Coca-Cola announced that neither of its longstanding ad agencies would lead global campaigns henceforth. Instead that honour would go to a network of three WPP-owned agencies: Ogilvy New York; Sra Rushmore in Madrid; and Santo in Buenos Aires. Lieutenants of WPP boss Sir Martin Sorrell have clearly done a superb job in securing "team WPP" as Coke’s lead consultancy.

Coca-Cola now has some of the best creative minds in the US, Europe and (that hotbed of creativity) South America working on its next big campaign. And yet it will retain seven other agencies around the world for project work to keep WPP on its toes. Such a roster can only be justified by a firm that continues to invest more than $400 million each year on advertising.

Even so, it will not be an easy nut to crack for Team WPP. Current Coke campaigns are a mish-mash of "healthy lifestyle" and "sharing" messaging, and Disneyesque joyful blandness. It is quite a challenge to make Coca-Cola’s core products relevant to consumers who are switching to water and juices for refreshment. This is one of the reasons why Coke is actually shifting marketing budget from advertising towards PR, which is better at dealing with more complex issues and entering constructive conversations with a plethora of sceptical shareholders.

Nevertheless great advertising has historically been used to successful effect in such tricky consumer conversations; the best example being Dove’s long-running Campaign for Real Beauty, in which, interestingly, Ogilvy is also pivotal.

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