Associate Director Andy Green blogs…
At last the magic ingredient of Coca Cola’s success is now being shared.
No, I am not talking about the tightly-guarded ingredients of its flavoured water.
Rather, how it allocates its precious resources for brand communications to ensure its future success by ‘gaining a disproportionate share of popular culture’ (isn’t this what you are about: aiming to gain a disproportionate share of your stakeholders’ culture?).
For several years now, when facilitating brand communications reviews or strategic awaydays I have been advocating an 80:20 formula – 80% of the things you do, you play safe, tried and tested; 20% you go for innovation, try new things, play, experiment, and engage more with risk.
By using this recipe, I believe you can get the best balance between safety/change and risk.
In its major strategic review, Coca Cola 2020 goes even further. It uses a 70:20:10 ratio.
70% of activity is Low Risk, bread and butter stuff;
20% is Innovative on what works, tending to be activity engaging more deeply with specific audience (but still has broad scale);
10% is for the High Risk, potentially tomorrow’s 20 or 70% activity, where learning intent is declared upfront, and you are prepared to fail by celebrating both failure and success.
Coca Cola is taking a lead in putting Brand Story at its heart of communications. Its video Content 2020 is both a masterpiece of production, and an essential must-see for any serious marketing communication professional. Check out the video – it only lasts 7 minutes.
Also, it is great to see the format used by the Royal Society for Arts in its Animate series being used as a model for spreading messages.
In the year ahead it’s going to be tough, but it’s not about the survival of the fittest – rather, the survival of the best fitting: who can best adapt to chnages, new demands, and capitalise on available opportuntities. How are you going to devise your 70:30:10?
Here are some key strategic tools I will be harnessing in the brand workshops I will be running for clients during 2012:
- 1. Be uncreative part one: Do a faster/quicker/cheaper review of what you currently do.
- 2. Be uncreative part two: Plan for 70 or 80% of your resources to be conservative, low risk, safe bet.
- 3. Do a traffic light analysis of your activity: what do you need to stop, what needs to continue and in what areas do you need to go ahead
- 4. Do something awesome with your 20 or 30%
- 5. What would your role model do?
- 6. Do a pre-mortem. Imagine yourself in a year’s time looking back on the previous 12 months in a scenario where your plans created a disaster. Examine why it was a disaster. This is a great technique as it legitimizes doubt and gets you to challenge much-cherished activity.
7. Just do the right thing
If you are not planning a strategic review for 2012 – will you still be here next year?
Are you seeking a ‘disproportionate share of popular culture’ in your communications in 2012? (So long as it’s part of a coherent Brand and Brand Story strategy.)
What are you going to do different in 2012? How are you going to be best fitting to your new world?