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Global Alignment

Big global advertisers like to have a single agency handling their brands worldwide. Is this wise?

By T.R. Vivek

It was a decision that still has adfolk across the world gulping. What happened? A couple of weeks ago, the Atlanta-based Coca-Cola Company shifted Classic Coke's creative account from long-time agency McCann Erickson to Berlin Cameron/Red Cell, a super-specialised advertising hothouse based in New York that's part of the WPP Group only as a matter of formality.

For one, any shift in Coke's account becomes a talking point for months on end (we're talking about a famously devoted client, and one that expects monogamous devotion in return). For another, the new agency isn't quite your regular mainstream agency, like an O&M or a JWT, which are also part of the London-based WPP Group. This is an edgy high-risk agency run by Andy Berlin, a man who may be only faintly aware of the relevance of WPP in the scheme of things ('Martin... Martin who?' sorta thing, y'know). The agency is more Berlin Cameron rather Red Cell.

Is this sort of independence exactly what Coke needs?

You bet. That seems to be the client's answer.

But hey, what about 'global alignment'? The Coca-Cola Company has been an early exponent of the idea that a single agency should handle the brand worldwide--that's the only way global brands can be truly 'global'. Aligned, that is.

While brand synchrony from market to market was all very good, global alignment also restricted the brand to large ad agencies with a presence in every odd corner of the world. And large agencies are also agencies that suffer the pains of size (low risk-taking ability being the chief pain). In other words, Coke had no access to the 'creative hothouses' that were willing to rock the market.

Now, thanks to market exigencies, the company has finally abandoned the idea. At least for the moment. In America, Coke needs a real market rocker. Berlin Cameron seems to have what it takes, judging by its success with Coke's new $250-million 'Real' campaign in the US, featuring Penelope Cruz, Courtney Cox and Muhammad Ali.

Overseas, the brand needs to get the brand's basic idea into the consumer's head. So McCann and other Interpublic agencies will continue their role as creative consultants -- outside the US. This makes sense, given how much one market varies from another. In the Indian market, for example, McCann has finally got its act together, and Coke has never looked stronger on its advertising (after years and years of mis-hits). Yet, McCann must stay on its toes. "Any global re-alignment is a wake-up call for an existing agency," says Suhel Seth, CEO, Equus Red Cell, the winning WPP agency's Indian unit, "but what is more is the feeling even amongst large and valued clients that sometimes cutting-edge creative on the back of insightful strategy can come from smaller, more focused agencies such as Berlin Cameron."

Credit for this new zest for creativity goes to Coca-Cola's President and Chief Operating Officer, Stephen J. Hayer, widely regarded as an innovator. The London-based creative hotshop Mother has been quietly working on the Coke Classic campaign in UK and Europe. Berlin Cameron was already working on Coke brands such as Dasani, Mello Yello and Nestea, when it got the Coke opportunity.

The work done by Berlin Cameron is sure to be watched closely by all McCann units handling Coke outside the US market. This is good. While global alignment, in strict mono-agency terms, may be a terrible idea in a diverse world, global brand coordination is still valid. So McCann and Berlin Cameron had better get into the cross-fertilisation act, fast. Varied inputs can make for terrific brainstorms, but at the end, the world's biggest brand must still mean the same thing to everybody--really. No compromises on that.

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