The world’s most recognizable brand is definitely not hurting for talent. Coca-Cola has been celebrated for innovative, touching, and effective marketing for over 100 years. So clearly no one there was worried when this whole Internet thing came around and threatened to turn marketing on its head. Right?
Creating a digital strategy that successfully incorporates the new dynamic of social media and communications technology is not easy. We’ve all seen terrible uses of content. We’ve all seen Facebook pages that are nothing but posts about reasons to buy a product over and over again. The challenge is that it’s no longer enough for something to be seen, it needs to be engaging for it to be successful.
The digital team at Coca-Cola is here to help. In fact, they were there to help – in 2012 – when they made the Liquid Content videos. Now, one presidential term later, the Liquid Content video is more accurate than ever for what a digital content strategy should look like. In the video, an esteemed-sounding British gentleman narrates a continuous whiteboard drawing of Coca-Cola’s content marketing strategy. For content marketers, it is 17 minutes of solid gold.
Over 10 chapters, Coca-Cola defines what they mean by Liquid and Linked content. It’s Liquid because of how it can move between the people who interact with it, with the idea of social amplification (virality) at the core. It’s Linked because it ties together Coca-Cola’s business objectives with their brands and their customers’ interests. All of this pushes towards winning a “disproportionate share of popular culture.”
From the amount of time spent on creating content, to the creative process, to how it fits in with other marketing strategies, Coca-Cola’s Liquid Content is such an incredible resource that it is hard to believe that it is free and public. But that’s exactly what content marketing is about, create value and interest with world-class content. Or a world-class content strategy.
Tony Hymes 