Coke CMO Says TV Still Delivers Best ROI Over Digital

The global chief marketing officer Marcos de Quinto has defended the practice of advertising on television, saying it gives the best bang for your buck, as the company’s digital spending habits are being thrown into question.

Speaking at a beverage industry conference in New York, de Quinto said TV is still “very, very critical for our business”, even including a slide in his presentation that claimed, “TV still offers the best ROI across media channels”.

The data on the slide might have come from 2014, but it still showed Coca Cola’s TV investment returning $2.13 for every dollar spent on telly, far more impressive than its $1.26 return from digital.

“We are very seriously trying to transform our company to make it a digital company, but it’s not just to put ads in social media,” he said, per AdAge. “Social media is the strategy for those who don’t have a true digital strategy.”

Coca-Cola is the world’s 13th-largest ad spender, shelling out $3.9 billion in 2015, a

According to the Ad Age Datacenter, Coke is the world’s 13th biggest spender on advertising, and in 2015 forked out almost four billion dollars, meaning that any changes the company makes in its media strategy won’t go unnoticed by its media partners, not to mention digital and social partners.

In digital, de Quinto said, “We are investing big amounts of money,” however, admitted that historically it’s not always been spent in the smartest way.”historically probably not in the smartest way,”

He gave one example: Coke runs an estimated 300 apps worldwide, “but most of these apps, they have less than 50,000 users or 100,000 users. That is nothing,” he added.

Coke’s new digital approach will be led by David Godsman, a former Bank of America executive who on December 5 joined Coca Cola in the newly created role of chief digital marketing officer. He will be charged with leading “the digital transformation of global marketing and align our system around a single digital marketing agenda,” according to a memo de Quinto sent to Coca-Cola employees this week announcing the hire.

TV ads have played a key role powering Coke’s “Taste the Feeling” campaign, which launched in the US in January. The effort, which was led by de Quinto, is part of a major strategic shift by which Coke is taking a “one-brand” approach uniting multiple varieties like Diet Coke and Coke Zero in a single global campaign, rather than running a bunch of isolated spots.

“If you want people to love to drink Coca-Cola, please show in your commercial people who love drinking Coca-Cola,” de Quinto said during his presentation, after mocking an old “Open Happiness” spot that barely showed the product. “We are re-Coca-Colizing Coca-Cola. We are going to the roots of what made this brand big.”

“The brand values make people love your brand more. But if you don’t explain to the new generations what the category is for, all the other categories will start attacking you,” he said.

“Some people were thinking that it is very complex to deliver both things in the same commercial.” He disagrees. “If one agency tells me that I have choose between one or the other, my election is clear — I will change the agency.”

Relying on a collection of agencies to spread the ‘Taste the Feeling’ message, including Ogilvy New York, Sra. Rushmore of Madrid, Santo of Buenos Aires and Mercado-McCann of Argentina, de Quinto said, “We are doing constant pitches with a roster of agencies. If there is an agency that is on the roster and they don’t win anything that is their problem.”

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