broken with his industry roots to become a health advocate. “The mantra was bigger packages, bigger servings, and more of everything per container,” he writes in his 2009 book Stuffed .
In 1994, Coke began introducing a new 20-ounce bottle, fashioned from polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic in Coke’s trademark “contour” shape—a variation on the old green-glass hobbleskirt bottle. It quickly replaced the 12-ounce can to become the standard serving size for Coke. The new container was a boon to the company—reversing years of discounts on multipack boxes of cans and allowing it to charge a premium price on the new, larger bottle. Along with the bigger sizes, Coke doubled down on Woodruff’s “arm’s reach of desire” strategy to put Coke anywhere and everywhere it could. “Our goal was to make Coca-Cola ubiquitous. At all times, at all places. . . . Coke Was It,” writes former brand manager Cardello. “My job was to keep the logo in your face, and present it in the most positive light. And I had access to a huge war chest with which to accomplish this.”
In 1997, Coke’s annual report laid bare its strategy with striking candor, stating, “We’re putting ice-cold Coca-Cola Classic and our other brands within reach, wherever you look: at the supermarket, the video store, the soccer field, the gas station—everywhere.” A Coke marketing newsletter later distributed to fast-food restaurants encouraged them to push soft drinks for breakfast, recommending they put Coke on the breakfast board and introduce special Coca-Cola cups for “the most important meal of the day.”
The big push to sell more volume worked. Annual soda consumption soared to 56.1 gallons—more than 600 cans—per person in 1998, up 30 percent from 1985, and two and a half times what it had been in 1970. And more and more soda drinkers were drinking Coke, which had reclaimed 45 percent of the market in the United States compared with Pepsi’s 30 percent. Naturally all of those soda sales sweetened Coke’s bottom line, leading to more than $4 billion in net income, and a whopping 3,500 percent increase in Coke’s stock price over Goizueta’s tenure—to a high point of $88 a share by 1998.
Even as consumption grew , Coke knew that it couldn’t count on customers to drink that much Coke without a little nudge. Goizueta, more than anyone, realized how important advertising was to selling product. “We don’t know how to sell products based on performance,” he once said, shrugging. “Everything we sell, we sell on image.” When Goizueta took over in 1981, Coke’s annual spending on advertising in the United States was up to $200 million. Goizueta doubled it, to $400 million, by 1984. There it hovered throughout the next decade, until Sergio Zyman came back on board in 1993.
After the debacle with New Coke, everyone had assumed Zyman would be the fall guy. Coke’s marketing chief not only was one of the prime movers behind the fateful change to Coke’s formula, but was also abrasive and authoritarian, alienating many in Coke headquarters. His insistence on numbers with no excuses had earned him the title of “Aya-Cola” back in the 1980s, when he had famously killed the “Mean” Joe Greene ad, one of the most endearing and popular ads in Coke’s history, when it didn’t “move the needle” to sell more product. “The sole purpose of marketing is to get more people to buy more of your product, more often, for more money,” he would write later, in his 1999 book The End of Marketing As We Know It .
Whatever Zyman’s past mistakes, that philosophy made perfect sense to Goizueta, who hired Zyman back as chief marketing officer in 1993. Once back, Zyman pushed the concept of “spending to sell”; every marketing campaign, he announced, would be weighed against how much it increased sales of soft drinks—if it didn’t, then it would be cut. If it did, “we poured on more.” The domestic ad
In 1994, Coke began introducing a new 20-ounce bottle, fashioned from polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic in Coke’s trademark “contour” shape—a variation on the old green-glass hobbleskirt bottle. It quickly replaced the 12-ounce can to become the standard serving size for Coke. The new container was a boon to the company—reversing years of discounts on multipack boxes of cans and allowing it to charge a premium price on the new, larger bottle. Along with the bigger sizes, Coke doubled down on Woodruff’s “arm’s reach of desire” strategy to put Coke anywhere and everywhere it could. “Our goal was to make Coca-Cola ubiquitous. At all times, at all places. . . . Coke Was It,” writes former brand manager Cardello. “My job was to keep the logo in your face, and present it in the most positive light. And I had access to a huge war chest with which to accomplish this.”
In 1997, Coke’s annual report laid bare its strategy with striking candor, stating, “We’re putting ice-cold Coca-Cola Classic and our other brands within reach, wherever you look: at the supermarket, the video store, the soccer field, the gas station—everywhere.” A Coke marketing newsletter later distributed to fast-food restaurants encouraged them to push soft drinks for breakfast, recommending they put Coke on the breakfast board and introduce special Coca-Cola cups for “the most important meal of the day.”
The big push to sell more volume worked. Annual soda consumption soared to 56.1 gallons—more than 600 cans—per person in 1998, up 30 percent from 1985, and two and a half times what it had been in 1970. And more and more soda drinkers were drinking Coke, which had reclaimed 45 percent of the market in the United States compared with Pepsi’s 30 percent. Naturally all of those soda sales sweetened Coke’s bottom line, leading to more than $4 billion in net income, and a whopping 3,500 percent increase in Coke’s stock price over Goizueta’s tenure—to a high point of $88 a share by 1998.
Even as consumption grew , Coke knew that it couldn’t count on customers to drink that much Coke without a little nudge. Goizueta, more than anyone, realized how important advertising was to selling product. “We don’t know how to sell products based on performance,” he once said, shrugging. “Everything we sell, we sell on image.” When Goizueta took over in 1981, Coke’s annual spending on advertising in the United States was up to $200 million. Goizueta doubled it, to $400 million, by 1984. There it hovered throughout the next decade, until Sergio Zyman came back on board in 1993.
After the debacle with New Coke, everyone had assumed Zyman would be the fall guy. Coke’s marketing chief not only was one of the prime movers behind the fateful change to Coke’s formula, but was also abrasive and authoritarian, alienating many in Coke headquarters. His insistence on numbers with no excuses had earned him the title of “Aya-Cola” back in the 1980s, when he had famously killed the “Mean” Joe Greene ad, one of the most endearing and popular ads in Coke’s history, when it didn’t “move the needle” to sell more product. “The sole purpose of marketing is to get more people to buy more of your product, more often, for more money,” he would write later, in his 1999 book The End of Marketing As We Know It .
Whatever Zyman’s past mistakes, that philosophy made perfect sense to Goizueta, who hired Zyman back as chief marketing officer in 1993. Once back, Zyman pushed the concept of “spending to sell”; every marketing campaign, he announced, would be weighed against how much it increased sales of soft drinks—if it didn’t, then it would be cut. If it did, “we poured on more.” The domestic ad
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