We love a brand new week, new opportunities and, of course, the Passion Weekly Roundup. This week’s instalment comes from our incredible New Business and Marketing team, who are deep diving into some of the biggest brands in the world.
1) Coca Cola Launches a New, Integrated Agency Model Ahead of the Christmas Period
The drinks giant Coca Cola announced an overhaul in its marketing strategy to streamline the entire ecosystem with a consumer-centric agency model. This involves having a global marketing partner to manage end-to-end creative assets across the entire Coca Cola portfolio, with a complementary media partner and a strategic roster of agencies for select markets. This whittled down approach for outsourcing simplifies the way the bottling company communicates with its consumers around the globe and encourages consistency in Coca Cola’s first new global brand platform since 2016: ‘Real Magic’. The agencies will work closely together to deliver a consistent brand message for Coca Cola, aligning with consumer ‘passion points’.
This unified approach to marketing is something we are fully aware and onboard with in Passion HQ, having recently streamlined our offering. Whereas previously we were split into four distinct services (SEO, PPC, Paid Social and Content), we are now broadly split between organic and paid marketing, with teams working more closely than ever to deliver a holistic service to our clients. Working as a more unified team at Passion means that results for clients are stronger, as we learn what is working well on the organic channels to enable us to level up the paid channels – and vice versa. They say communication is key, and we couldn’t agree more.
The past couple of weeks have seen the arrival of the big Christmas adverts on television. Coca Cola’s ad this year focuses on its new platform ‘Real Magic’ showcasing how communities can come together over the festive period for unforgettable moments. And the John Lewis ad (which marks the beginning of the festive period, in our eyes) was pushed forward by around two weeks, revealing the anticipation for the Christmas season this year given the disappointing time we had last year.
M&S has taken an interesting approach this festive period, revealing that its Christmas food campaign will rely on social media platforms more than TV.
Although TV is still an important brand awareness – or more like brand affirmation – platform, social media is proving instrumental in many brands’ Christmas campaigns at each stage of the marketing funnel.
2) The Marketing Industry’s Responsibility to Marginalised Communities
Auge Reichenberg of VMLY&R Health (a global healthcare agency) has said that marketing agencies should be doing more to empower marginalised communities across the world, in an effort to empower them to be climate leaders. As COP-26 drew to a close last week, it became apparent that decisions about the global environment were mostly being made by leaders in the global North. This has meant the people who will feel the greatest impact are largely left out of the conversation – or at least don’t have as loud a voice as they should.
Marketing agencies cannot sit back and think they have no role to play in changing the record. We are instrumental in getting stories, events and key information across to people so our efforts should be focused on communicating campaigns to these communities around the world to empower them to become key players in the climate conversation.
It’s easy for agencies to become bogged down in the day to day and neglect our ethical duties. At Passion, we’re keen to get involved in sustainability conversations and making voices heard, be it to change the climate story or raising awareness of amazing charitable work being done for marginalised communities closer to home.
3) Remote Working Damages Agency Creativity
A study by LinkedIn (shared exclusively with Marketing Week) showed that more than two-thirds of CMOs are concerned that less time in the office with colleagues will negatively impact creativity. What’s more is that 58% of senior marketers already believe the pandemic has weakened social ties between staff. We cannot underestimate the power of in-person conversations, meetings and support. Meaningful relationships at work means it’s easier to collaborate, debate and bounce ideas off each other. We all know how difficult it is to replicate a creative ideation session on Zoom. The cutting in and out alone is enough to drain any creative atom in your brain.
At Passion we like to call our Brixton office a hub. This reflects the buzzing environment, welcoming informal chats and a space for creative ideas and collaboration. We do have a flexible working from home policy which is so useful for when you have that extra large wash to do or that all important signed-for package arriving, but there’s nothing quite like being in the office. The key is to make the office a place employees want to be and at Passion, if we do say so ourselves, we have that nailed (written by a keen office goer!).
Marketing can be a funny old thing to navigate, especially as we rely more on the mystical digital assets. Our team at Passion HQ is dedicated to providing the best service possible, giving you all the knowledge you need to put together a campaign worth talking about. Give us a call to discuss how we can help you.