Coke's Got Many Digital Pushes, but One Goal: Brand Experience†

Soda Maker's Interactive Chief on How to Deliver Compelling Ideas to Wide Range of Global Markets

Advertising Age, August 27, 2007 — NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Coca-Cola Co.'s new chief marketing officer, Joe Tripodi, will have a new global interactive chief to turn to when he starts. While her title is new, Carol Kruse knows her way around the beverage giant, having managed Coke's online advertising, customer-relationship marketing, and online and gaming marketing over the past six years.

Coke Goes for a Good Old Cup of Joe†

As CMO, Tripodi Will Go Back to Basics, Focus on In-Store Efforts

Advertising Age, July 30, 2007 — After years of veering among different high-profile marketing executives, each of whom proselytized about a different high-minded marketing concept, Coca-Cola Co. has gone back to fundamentals.

Does Coke Need a Refill?

Coke Struggles to Keep Up With Nimble Rivals

New York Times, May 27, 2007 — As its rivals have diversified and taken risks, the Coca-Cola Company has struggled to reinvent itself.

Coke Takes $4 Billion Step Away From Carbonation

New York Times, May 26, 2007 — With the help of beverage experts, Mr. Bikoff started mixing his own water-based beverage, spiked with vitamins, which became the popular Vitaminwater. Yesterday, he sold the drink maker Glacéau to Coca-Cola for $4.1 billion, a substantial sum for a company whose products are not yet readily available all across the country

More Pop for Corporate Museums†

Coke's Exhibit Leads Trend of Bigger, Flashier, Costlier

Wall Street Journal, May 21, 2007 — From the theater to a 29½-foot-high contour bottle encased in a glass tower to more than 1,000 pieces of memorabilia, elaborately orchestrated schmaltz pervades the New World of Coca-Cola, a $96 million museum opening to the public Thursday. Coca-Cola Co. estimates that about a million people a year will visit the company's shrine to itself, which is roughly the size of 1½ football fields and located about a mile from Coke's headquarters.

A Brand Theme Park for Children†

Kidzania's Unique Style of 'Edutainment'

Advertising Age, April 23, 2007 — Kidzania, a theme park offering intense brand engagement with young children, is a new twist on branded entertainment. It charges a $30 admission fee to allow children to "work" in one of 70 different kinds of jobs for a day. Young customers are outfitted in uniforms, hats or helmets as they take up their places in child-sized brand venues ranging from a Coca-Cola bottling plant and a Mo's Gourmet Hamburgers restaurant to a Johnson & Johnson hospital ward and a Mitsubishi auto world.

Coke Opens VirtualThirst.com In Second Life

MediaPost Publications, April 17, 2007 — DIVING INTO THE VIRTUAL WATERS, Coca-Cola officially entered Second Life, issuing an invitation to avatars as well as the general public to submit ideas for a portable virtual vending machine. The design competition invites people to submit designs to www.virtualthirst.com for a chance to win a grand prize of building and launching the ultimate vending machine with the help of 3-D design shop Millions of Us.

Coke And L'Oreal Partner on New Health Beverage†

Brandweek, March 14, 2007 — Coca-Cola and L'Oréal are partnering to create a new health-and-beauty beverage to launch in 2008, sources said. Currently called Lumaé, the nutraceutical drink was trademarked as a tea-based ready-to-drink beverage by Coca-Cola's Beverage Partners Worldwide division.

Looks Who's Calling Itself 'Sparkling'†

Coke Drops the Word 'Carbonated'

Advertising Age, February 19, 2007 — If he pulls this off, E. Neville Isdell could go down as the sultan of spin. Several times during a fourth-quarter earnings call with analysts, Coca-Cola's Chairman-CEO refrained from using the tired old term for the weakening category in which his company's flagship competes. At least a dozen times during the call, the word "carbonated" was swapped with a far more friendly term, "sparkling," while the word "still" was used in place of "noncarbonated."

Marketers Can't Buy Buzz†

Advertising Age, January 31, 2007 — The Beatles said you "Can't buy me love," but marketers' version of that refrain is closer to "Can't buy me buzz."