Coca-Cola is All-In With Content Marketing

In this blog there is, and will continue to be, a lot of discussion of digital marketing ideas for insurance agencies. A big part of marketing your business online is content marketing, but before we jump in on content marketing, we thought we would share how the Coke a Cola company is thinking about content marketing.

We believe in content marketing, and we use it in our own businesses.

I continue to follow the major thinkers in the online marketing community, and even those that aren’t directly promoting content marketing consistently discuss the relevance of remarkable content as a cornerstone of your online strategy.

But it’s not about my thoughts about content marketing, or the thoughts of the online marketing community, sometimes we need to see a hardcore marketing leader make a move before we do. And that is fine … as long as you shift your thinking too. J

Major Brands are Embracing Content Marketing

Today you can find examples of content marketing at nearly all major brands, each appears to have a content initiative at various stages of development or evolution. Even in our own industry, insurance, you can find examples from State Farm or Liberty Mutual.

But I think the greatest example that content marketing is beginning to move mainstream is the Coca-Cola Content 2020 initiative. It tells us that a leading marketer, one of the biggest spenders of conventional, outbound marketing, is recognizing that the way to market your business or brand has changed.

This is what I get out of Coca-Cola Content 2020

Content marketing is being validated, it works, and major marketers are feeling the pressure to embrace content as marketing. The VP of Global Advertising Strategy and Creative Excellence at the time, Jonathan Mildenhall, said of Content 2020:

All advertisers need a lot more content so that they can keep the engagement with consumers fresh and relevant, because of the 24/7 connectivity. If you’re going to be successful around the world, you have to have fat and fertile ideas at the core.

Not only are they validating content marketing in the quote by Mildenhall, but if you listen to the videos, you’ll see that the content marketing themes we have (and will be soon) talk about are all there:

• Coca-Cola needs to move from creative excellence to content excellence, 
• They need to develop content that makes a commitment to making the world a better place and to develop value and significance in people’s lives…while at the same time driving business objectives for Coca-Cola, and
• Through the stories they tell, to provoke conversations and earn a disproportionate share of popular culture.

In the beginning, the claim is made that Coca-Cola must create the world’s most compelling content. Toward the end, the comment is made that Coca-Cola can no longer rely on being 30-Second-TV-Centric.

Sounds like a ringing endorsement.

Conclusion

Content marketing is real, it works, big brands are going to jump in with both feet, don’t get left behind. Nobody says it will be easy, conventional marketing wasn’t easier either, but if you work it you’ll be rewarded.