Media Buying Briefing: Breaking down Coca-Cola’s campaign blitz with an eye toward its review

That machine’s current output — the sponsorship activations, creator marketing activity and big ticket campaigns — can tell us what Coke’s priorities are in the present, and the future. 

The big-picture view finds the beverage company riding high. Coca-Cola’s first quarter net revenue grew 12% year on year to $12.5 billion. The company’s CEO Henrique Gnani Braun told analysts during its most recent earnings call he’s focused upon “improving performance across all dimensions of our strategic growth flywheel to recruit consumers and drive balanced long-term growth.”

Translated from corporatese, the brief is to secure the next generation of Diet Coke and Minute Maid drinkers.

If WPP can convince Braun and his colleagues that its media and data solutions are best placed to achieve that goal, it’ll be a shot in the arm for the British holding company and its recently appointed CEO Cindy Rose. If Publicis wins, it’ll be the first major indictment on her leadership and ability to turn around WPP’s fortunes.

Single, unified brand campaigns a la McCann’s ‘Buy the World a Coke’ are long departed, however. As strategist Zoe Scaman put it, “The days of matching luggage campaigns that are recognizable across different platforms and turn into water cooler moments, they’re kind of gone.”

Instead, Coca-Cola’s engineered a multipolar marketing strategy, running major brand campaigns respectively designed to own the moment at the World Cup, boost its patriotic credentials for the 250th anniversary of the United States and boost restaurant sales of its brand portfolio. In each case, it’s working from a different media playbook.

Take Coke’s approach to the United States Semiquincentennial (its 250th anniversary, for the non-Latin speakers). The company kicked off a patriotic campaign referencing its famous McCann ad, with the addition of a gospel choir and shots of Utah, the Brooklyn Bridge and towering redwoods, at the beginning of April. 

And according to Adclarity data seen by Digiday, in the fortnight following its launch, Coca-Cola spent $3.1 million running the ad across mobile video, social video, CTV and linear channels; the latter two accounted for 49% of the budget. 

By contrast, the spending in the same period on its “And A Coke” campaign, intended to boost sales of its portfolio at fast food joints in the U.S., suggested a media plan tilted to targeting consumers on the go and closer to the point of purchase.

‘And A Coke’ deployed almost double the mobile budget allotted for ‘Drink In America’, covering 18.4% of the spending in the April snapshot; the QSR campaign also saw a slight reduction in the budget allotted to CTV and linear. Amid competition from rival sodas like Dr Pepper and Poppi, “And A Coke” aims to reinforce Coke’s position as a fast food accompaniment. 

Bennie Reed, an ad strategist who formerly worked for clients such as Dr Pepper, now the founder of creative agency This Will Be Good, called it a “brick to forehead” approach. “They are fighting being ‘basic’ soda, the generalist choice,” he said.

Then there’s the World Cup. A FIFA sponsor, Coca-Cola’s efforts run the gamut, involving a digital twin of famed coach José Mourinho, social activity featuring the worldwide tour of the World Cup’s Jules Rimet cup, and more typical TV advertising in the form of its “No Better Feeling” spot and a Lamine Yamal-starring campaign intended to boost Powerade sales throughout the tournament. That’s a lot to track.

The former spot was rated “exceptional” by creative effectiveness ad measurement company System1, while its “Uncanned Emotions” campaign ranked highly among U.S. audiences for emotional engagement.

“The World Cup is one of the few global events that delivers massive live audiences and sustained attention,” noted eMarketer analyst Grace Harmon. “Even for a brand as large as Coke, it’s difficult to replicate that combination elsewhere.”

As the tournament approached in May, Coca-Cola was the top-spending World Cup advertiser in the U.S., ahead of Adidas, Verizon and Diageo, according to Adclarity. 

On social, its efforts appear to be paying off. Meltwater analysis of social network users’ interactions with sponsors’ World Cup marketing efforts between January and the beginning of June found that Coca-Cola enjoyed a 43% share of all social engagement, 75% above the category average. Its partnership with Yamal has been particularly successful, with a single post announcing the team-up generating 40 million impressions and 0.8% of all sponsor engagement in the six month period.

Sprout Social logged 1,012,200 likes, comments and shares on Coca-Cola’s marketing posts so far this year, while its soccer-dedicated @cocacolafutbol account boasts an average engagement rate of 24%, well above most creators.

Overall, Adclarity’s estimates suggest Coca-Cola spent an estimated $105.2 million in the U.S. throughout the first quarter. Video, CTV and social dominated that spending, accounting for around $30 million each; the company put $17.2 million towards linear TV. In total, that equated to a 0.17% share of the total U.S. ad market in that time frame.

“This spending feels consistent with where large consumer brands have been moving,” said eMarketer’s Harmon. The analyst’s forecasts suggest that digital channels will account for 83.9% of U.S. ad spend this year, with just 10.5% going to TV; much of that digital spending will go on social or online video.

If there’s a common thread between the three strategies, Harmon said, it’s “high-reach moments that can attract infrequent buyers and younger consumers into the franchise, rather than doubling down on loyalty.”

Each of the moments Coca-Cola is gunning for, though, require different treatments — and a data and media operation to ensure opportunities are taken.

WPP and Publicis’ task will be to prove they’re the ones capable of supporting that operation.

Attivo adds Salar Labs to its offering

Back in February, Attivo, a New Zealand-based marketing services holding company, made a move into the U.S. by purchasing Hill Holliday and DNY (formerly Deutsch), two full-service shops that had faded a bit in recent years. Digiday has learned that Attivo is now launching a standalone shop, Salar Labs, which aims to bridge the gap in understanding between creative and media, as it puts the proverbial media cart before the creative horse. 

According to Sasha Savic, CEO of Attivo Group U.S. and Salar Labs, who was hired to build out Attivo’s American holdings (and who brought along Anush Prabhu to helm Hill Holliday and DNY), the new shop will service all of Attivo’s agencies, and has already done work for some clients, although he declined to identify them. The driving principle is, with all campaign work, as Salar Labs gets the data and informational feedback, it adapts on the fly.

“We use lots of data and technology to set up and start a campaign, but then we use ongoing optimization and learnings to kind of direct budgets and direct efforts toward things that deliver more,” said Savic. 

He added that a test with an unnamed client increased the number of creative elements on social, both paid and organic, from a few to hundreds of ads and posts within a single month. “That was not even possible before AI,” said Savic. “It’s totally crazy, but it is beautiful at the same time.” 

Salar isn’t a name often used in the media and marketing world, but Savic explained its Latin root means “leaper” — which seems to match well with his personal passion for fishing. — Michael Bürgi

Color by numbers

The World Cup started last week to somewhat muted attention besides some negative press about empty seats in stadiums, thanks to exorbitant pricing and visa issues for a lot of travelers coming to the U.S. from overseas. But expectations for ratings remain somewhat high, at least once the first round is over and pressure mounts on the national teams. Some interesting stats on World Cup viewers, from research firm Fifty5Blue, tubular Labs and Harris Poll: 

• According to Tubular, over 58 billion views have been generated around the World Cup so far this year on YouTube with 7.5% of those coming from brand videos.
• Fifty5Blue found that 74% watch clips for free online, compared to 59% of all adults, while 40% watch sports clips via online video, compared to 22% of all adults
• Globally, according to Fifty5Blue, 54% of fans make social plans to watch football, with 23% saying they watch live broadcasts in a bar or other venue. 
• However, U.S. World Cup fans are less likely to do so, with only 15% saying they watch matches in bars or other venues, one of the lowest levels globally.
• Finally, according to Harris Poll, there is curiosity among Americans — 52% say hosting major international sporting events in North America is making them more interested in sports they would not normally follow. 

Takeoff & landing

• Havas has again gone into acquisition mode, buying a majority interest in North American youth-targeting experiential agency Archrival, to be added into Havas Play. The agency says it works with big-name brands including Adidas, Spotify, Netflix, EA, YouTube, Google, Disney, and Amazon.
• Accenture bought creator and social agency Whalar from Whalar Group as a means to boost its creator offerings. The agency will get folded into Accenture Song.  
• Crossmedia launched XM Sports and Entertainment, a new unit designed to help brands plan, invest and measure sports partnerships across media, sponsorship, and activation. 
• Account moves: Publicis Media landed HP’s global media business, taking it from incumbent Omnicom Media, which had the account for 17 years … On the plus side for Omnicom Media, it won State Bank of India’s media business in that region, following a review … WPP Media’s EssenceMediacom won Just Eat Takeaway’s media business across Europe and Canada, but sibling unit Wavemaker in India saw the Pernod Ricard account go into review. 
• Personnel moves: WPP Media Malaysia hired Vanitha Selvathurai as its vp for clients, coming over from Dentsu’s Carat Malaysia … CMI Media Group hired two execs from Omnicom posts: Michele Sirkin becomes chief media operations officer, while Selamawit Gilagaber was named evp of insights and intelligence … Indie Novus also poached from Omnicom, hiring Andrew Layman as vp of analytics & data science … OOH media agency Talon promoted Sarah Kim to managing director of Canada, from svp of investment & strategy.

Direct quote

“I don’t think that the term SSP will exist in the way that it exists today in a few years.”

— Amanda Forrester, CMO of OpenX, as told to Digiday’s Seb Joseph.

Speed reading

• Seb Joseph checked in on the recent rapprochement between Publicis and The Trade Desk, wondering what the reasoning behind the settlement was.
• Modern Retail’s Mitchell Parton looks into the efforts being made on the part of retail media networks to prove their worth, and using the World Cup as the stage for that proof.
• Ronan Shields examined the changing nature of AI-related terminology in the agency world as the technology creeps deeper into that world, but proof of effectiveness remains harder to show. 
• Michael Bürgi covered the news of Mile Marker acquiring Lift, a creative performance agency to round its offering. 
• In his latest Future of TV Briefing, Tim Peterson explains how this year’s upfront marketplace could usher in an era of greater importance for outcome-based buying in future upfronts.