Nothing’s changed but everything’s changed: Marketing Coca-Cola during COVID-19 without fizzing out

Coca-Cola’s Sadaf Zarrar talks through the changes the beverage giant had to make during COVID-19, and how the crisis inadvertently helped up its marketing game.

COVID-19, as Coca-Cola’s ASEAN director of integrated content and creative excellence Sadaf Zarrar noted, has been an unlikely aid in helping the beverage giant to up its marketing game of late.

“It's unprecedented – there's no way that anyone is 101% prepared for it,” she said in an interview with the World Federation of Advertisers’ APAC marketing services director Ranji David, during the All That Matters conference. “It also does not call for an immediate change in what you do.”

Rather than drastic changes, Zarrar said that her team has favoured going down the optimisation route. “Coca-Cola's marketing journey in...

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