TORONTO: Coca-Cola, the soft drinks giant, is aiming to engage consumers at truly "decisive" moments in the purchase journey, such as when consumers are building online shopping lists.
Ivan Pollard, SVP/strategic marketing at Coca-Cola, discussed this topic at 2017 Global Marketer Week, an event co-sponsored by the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) and Association of Canadian Advertisers (ACA).
More specifically, he outlined how the company – which owns brands including Fanta, Sprite and Minute Maid – is seeking to engage consumers at critical points in the purchase cycle.
One example, Pollard reported, is "the moment you first go to your online shopping list for an e-commerce grocery site that's going to deliver – week in, week out – your food and drink order." (For more details, read WARC's free-to-access report: How Coke balances real world and digital world.)
The benefit of reaching shoppers at this moment is that people are likely to re-order the same items on a regular basis, meaning the brands they originally choose will have a clear advantage.
"Once I'm on [that list], that's going to return huge value for us. That's what I call a 'decisive' moment. And I would pay a premium for it," said Pollard.
As demonstrated by this illustration, the "decisive" moments for brands are not always the most obvious, or apparently aspirational, in form.
"You might think that the decisive moment would be a group of thirsty young boys or girls walking out of SoulCycle. Or a bunch of aging hipster millennials walking out of their tech startup with no socks on looking for their lunch," Pollard said.
"Both would be good moments for us, but I don't know if they could be called 'decisive.'"
While identifying "decisive" moments would seem to imply that precise digital targeting is a priority, Pollard suggested that Coke still requires a broad reach – through online and offline channels alike – to achieve its wider goals.
"We're a scale business. Every day, we sell hundreds of millions of drinks to tens of millions of consumers in North America," he said.
"So, even in that context – in the world of personalized content and digital devices – we still have to maintain a healthy balance between being woven into the fabric of life in America, and maintaining some presence in other places."
Ivan Pollard, SVP/strategic marketing at Coca-Cola, discussed this topic at 2017 Global Marketer Week, an event co-sponsored by the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA) and Association of Canadian Advertisers (ACA).
More specifically, he outlined how the company – which owns brands including Fanta, Sprite and Minute Maid – is seeking to engage consumers at critical points in the purchase cycle.
One example, Pollard reported, is "the moment you first go to your online shopping list for an e-commerce grocery site that's going to deliver – week in, week out – your food and drink order." (For more details, read WARC's free-to-access report: How Coke balances real world and digital world.)
The benefit of reaching shoppers at this moment is that people are likely to re-order the same items on a regular basis, meaning the brands they originally choose will have a clear advantage.
"Once I'm on [that list], that's going to return huge value for us. That's what I call a 'decisive' moment. And I would pay a premium for it," said Pollard.
As demonstrated by this illustration, the "decisive" moments for brands are not always the most obvious, or apparently aspirational, in form.
"You might think that the decisive moment would be a group of thirsty young boys or girls walking out of SoulCycle. Or a bunch of aging hipster millennials walking out of their tech startup with no socks on looking for their lunch," Pollard said.
"Both would be good moments for us, but I don't know if they could be called 'decisive.'"
While identifying "decisive" moments would seem to imply that precise digital targeting is a priority, Pollard suggested that Coke still requires a broad reach – through online and offline channels alike – to achieve its wider goals.
"We're a scale business. Every day, we sell hundreds of millions of drinks to tens of millions of consumers in North America," he said.
"So, even in that context – in the world of personalized content and digital devices – we still have to maintain a healthy balance between being woven into the fabric of life in America, and maintaining some presence in other places."
Data sourced from WARC
