Call it a vice, an addiction or what I call it, simply, happiness in a can. I love me a Coca-Cola, and I’m not the only one. I even have a pinboard on Pinterest dedicated to this sugary goodness.
Introduced in 1886, Coca-cola, aka Coke, is now sold in over 200 countries and is considered the most valuable brand in the world. But if you need me to tell you about Coke, you probably have been under a rock for the past 150 years and reading this blog post is not how you should be spending your time – Instead,I suggest getting caught up on all the latest technologies you’ve missed, like electricity, cars and indoor plumbing.
So you get it. Coke is huge. Yet how does it continue to be a household name and grow as the economy tightens, demand increases for healthier alternatives, and competition becomes fiercer: the answer – Content Excellence.
In a two part video series called Coca-Cola Content 2020, (part 1, part 2) developed by Cognitive Media six months ago, Coke’s strategy to use content excellence to double the business is explained. I’d like to summarize a few of the concepts from that video series and hope you will be inspired on how you or your company can implement these strategies into your marketing mix.
Coke sets up that content must be liquid and linked. What this means is that ideas and content flow together using storytelling, collaborating efforts, and purpose. These ideas and content are so compelling that they become their own life-force connected, adaptive, and continuous. Coke has committed to acting and reacting to the stories emerging on and offline. They have realized that there is a distribution of creativity and technology which allows for an increase in demand for content and the ability to develop deeper emotional connections.
Storytelling is at the heart of families and communities. Coke understands that their brand story must make a better world and therefore insights must lead to provocations or bigger transformational actions. They know that they must use data to create ideas and from these ideas, a big-fat fertile space can be seen and utilized. Once this space is realized, Coke builds on business data, determines objectives and challenges, finds collaborators, and then launches an online conversation.
These conversations must have significance and value as well as substance and matter. And although there may be many different processes to launch these online conversations or with whom they will speak, five principles guide each conversation.
These five principles in building liquid and linked conversations are:
- Inspire participation among the best
- Connect these creative minds
- Share the results
- Continue development
- Measure success
The last part, I wish to summaries is the 70/20/10 rule to content development because I am consistently asked what content should be made and how. 70 percent of the content is low risk content, 20 percent is innovative and focused on specific audiences, and the last 10 percent is high risk content. In content development, be prepared to fail and celebrate both failure and success.
Blog Post Written by Jimmy Donnellon
Jimmy is an inbound marketing professional with a background in public relations and marketing. Jimmy helps his clients found on the web, convert visitors into leads and helps them track their results.