What Frustrates Coke About Mobile

It seems obvious. People are using mobile more than ever, brands should be ready for that. And yet by some estimates more than half of brands don’t have a mobile-optimized site.

The honest reason?  “It’s hard as shit,” said Kim Siler, mobile brand strategy, global connections at Coca-Cola. It’s hard for Coke because it is a global company that markets to consumers in many countries, in different languages and across a large spectrum of devices. Every mobile marketing campaign needs to have various versions to fit different consumer preferences.

Siler spoke at Netbiscuits World 2012 about the challenges that brands face in mobile. One of her biggest issues is agency relations. She said agencies are so busy competing with one another that they aren’t doing enough collaboration. The mobile agency isn’t on the same page as the social agency and so on.

Another issue that Siler has with mobile is the budget. For the Olympics this year, mobile got only about a quarter of what the overall digital budget was and Siler is frustrated by that.

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