budget rose to $500 million in 1994, $600 million in 1996, and $700 million in 1997 (with $1.6 billion spent on advertising worldwide).
And it wasn’t enough to get more people to drink Coke products—it was also important for those already drinking Coke to drink more of them. Company statistics showed that of the 64 ounces the average person drank in a day, Coke products accounted for just a miserable two of them. It was Zyman’s job to think of ways to get people to increase that number; after all, in his native Mexico, it was common for people to drink three or four cans a day. “These are the consumers you want,” he said. “And you want to make sure that you capture all of them.”
Zyman came up with a new concept he called “dimensionalizing,” which he defined as giving people more reasons to drink beyond Coke’s “original selling proposition.” If a person had eight drinks a week because he was thirsty, then telling him to be sociable might drive that up to ten. “Then you have to create a new reason after 10,” said Zyman. In order to get a better handle on the various reasons to drink Coke, the company had 3,600 super-consumers—whom they called, without irony, “heavy users”—to keep diaries of all of the occasions when they drank, which the marketers called “need states.”
The research was enormously successful, revealing 40,000 separate occasions when the test subjects might pop open a can. Zyman distilled them down to thirty-five different reasons to drink Coke, or “dimensions,” including: “Coke is part of my life. It understands me. Cool people drink it. People of all ages drink it. It has a bite and a distinctive taste. It comes in a contour bottle. It is modern, funny, emotional, simple, large, friendly, consistent, and everywhere.” Of course, such an approach to advertising raises the question: At what point are you anticipating customers’ needs and at what point are you creating them? Coke didn’t dwell on the question long. For each attribute, the marketers designed a different ad, rolling them all together in a new campaign under the slogan “Always Coca-Cola” (which had the delicious double entendre of harkening back to Coke’s heritage while encouraging consumers to drink it at every occasion).
At the same time, Zyman shook up Madison Avenue by spreading work among different agencies, having them compete for Coke’s vast advertising war chest. Along with Apple and Nike, Coke even began to contract out to Hollywood powerhouse Creative Artists Agency, which created one of Coke’s most compelling symbols. During the 1993 Academy Awards presentation, TV viewers were introduced to a computer-generated family of polar bears watching the northern lights in a vast expanse of ice with nothing to break up the monotony but the familiar logo of Coca-Cola. The bear clan returned for the following holiday season, Coke’s most successful branding of Christmas since it introduced its Santa Claus ads in the 1930s.
The polar bears were the perfect new branding agent in an era when branding was king. A few years after New Coke taught the Coca-Cola Company the value of its brand name, the rest of Wall Street learned the same lesson when Philip Morris cut the price of its Marlboro cigarettes by 20 percent to compete with generics flooding the market. Immediately Philip Morris’s stock dropped, along with Coca-Cola and many other brands, as the financial press rang a death knell for the brand.
A few weeks after the incident, Goizueta called Wall Street analysts down to an emergency meeting in Atlanta. “We are getting a bum rap,” he whined. “It’s one thing when your stock drops 10 percent because of a mistake your company has made . . . but it’s something else . . . when it drops because of a business with totally different financial and social dynamics.” For the next four hours, he patiently explained why people might not pay for a Marlboro but they would pay for a
And it wasn’t enough to get more people to drink Coke products—it was also important for those already drinking Coke to drink more of them. Company statistics showed that of the 64 ounces the average person drank in a day, Coke products accounted for just a miserable two of them. It was Zyman’s job to think of ways to get people to increase that number; after all, in his native Mexico, it was common for people to drink three or four cans a day. “These are the consumers you want,” he said. “And you want to make sure that you capture all of them.”
Zyman came up with a new concept he called “dimensionalizing,” which he defined as giving people more reasons to drink beyond Coke’s “original selling proposition.” If a person had eight drinks a week because he was thirsty, then telling him to be sociable might drive that up to ten. “Then you have to create a new reason after 10,” said Zyman. In order to get a better handle on the various reasons to drink Coke, the company had 3,600 super-consumers—whom they called, without irony, “heavy users”—to keep diaries of all of the occasions when they drank, which the marketers called “need states.”
The research was enormously successful, revealing 40,000 separate occasions when the test subjects might pop open a can. Zyman distilled them down to thirty-five different reasons to drink Coke, or “dimensions,” including: “Coke is part of my life. It understands me. Cool people drink it. People of all ages drink it. It has a bite and a distinctive taste. It comes in a contour bottle. It is modern, funny, emotional, simple, large, friendly, consistent, and everywhere.” Of course, such an approach to advertising raises the question: At what point are you anticipating customers’ needs and at what point are you creating them? Coke didn’t dwell on the question long. For each attribute, the marketers designed a different ad, rolling them all together in a new campaign under the slogan “Always Coca-Cola” (which had the delicious double entendre of harkening back to Coke’s heritage while encouraging consumers to drink it at every occasion).
At the same time, Zyman shook up Madison Avenue by spreading work among different agencies, having them compete for Coke’s vast advertising war chest. Along with Apple and Nike, Coke even began to contract out to Hollywood powerhouse Creative Artists Agency, which created one of Coke’s most compelling symbols. During the 1993 Academy Awards presentation, TV viewers were introduced to a computer-generated family of polar bears watching the northern lights in a vast expanse of ice with nothing to break up the monotony but the familiar logo of Coca-Cola. The bear clan returned for the following holiday season, Coke’s most successful branding of Christmas since it introduced its Santa Claus ads in the 1930s.
The polar bears were the perfect new branding agent in an era when branding was king. A few years after New Coke taught the Coca-Cola Company the value of its brand name, the rest of Wall Street learned the same lesson when Philip Morris cut the price of its Marlboro cigarettes by 20 percent to compete with generics flooding the market. Immediately Philip Morris’s stock dropped, along with Coca-Cola and many other brands, as the financial press rang a death knell for the brand.
A few weeks after the incident, Goizueta called Wall Street analysts down to an emergency meeting in Atlanta. “We are getting a bum rap,” he whined. “It’s one thing when your stock drops 10 percent because of a mistake your company has made . . . but it’s something else . . . when it drops because of a business with totally different financial and social dynamics.” For the next four hours, he patiently explained why people might not pay for a Marlboro but they would pay for a
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