First 100 days

As critical as they are, the first 100 days are just a taster of what is to follow.

Inspirational marketers maintain this momentum right through their reign... Sergio Zyman is a case in point, as this AdWeek extract testifies::

"When Sergio joined us, we agreed on a couple of things up front," says Ivester. "He was not the advertising director, and he was not the marketing director. He would be chief marketing officer. A chief marketing officer is a businessman who understands cash flow and has expertise in the marketing arena. That is probably as big a shift for our organization--for any organization--to make the business of the company marketing."

Despite the leisurely tone of his Southern accent, Ivester is a hard-driving, results-focused executive. He came up through the company's financial ranks, oversaw Coke operations in Europe (where he breached Eastern Europe swiftly after the collapse of the Berlin Wall) and North America, and helped spin off Coca-Cola Enterprises, the company's biggest bottler. As president, he relies on Zyman for strategic insights. "I might see a commercial once every three months or something like that," Ivester says. "But we don't spend our time talking about the commercials or the marketing programs. We spend our time talking about the opportunities."

To capitalize on those opportunities, Ivester notes that Zyman has much greater budget control--across many departments and divisions--than any predecessor. "Marketing at the company is no longer a function," says Zyman. "It's no longer, 'you have marketing, finance, operations and legal.' Marketing is what we do." Short and lithe, Zyman punctuates his remarks with body language. He clearly enjoys taking the stage, and his appetite for performance has grown with his expanded role. Says Zyman, "What we do is we have to find ways to sell more product in order to make more money in the most efficient way, right? What I've said in interviews is that marketing is too important to be left only to the marketing guys. What we're bringing in is an infusion of blood."

For many agencies, it's their blood that has either been spilled--or raced faster--since Zyman returned, Napoleon-like, from exile. He has wholly reformulated Coca-Cola's relationship with advertising agencies in his 27 months. Instead of relying on a few account and media handlers for all brands and all regions, Zyman has opened up Coca-Cola's advertising to the brightest thinkers--and, some say, lowest bidders--in the business. Coke now boasts an arsenal of nearly 30 agencies, including top names in the U.S. like Wieden & Kennedy and Fallon McElligott (and, until a client conflict, TBWA/Chiat Day), and hot shops around the world like Bartle Bogle Hegarty of London and Spain's Casadevall Pedreno & PSG. He has a French agency developing creative for the American market and a Chicago stronghold doing worldwide campaigns for a New Age drink.

Zyman is blunt about why he broke down his company's four-decade reliance on a single agency. "You have great talent [at the top of agencies], and it starts going down real quick," he says. "So you end up with 17 brands in one agency. One brand's going to get the good stuff; the rest are going to get Xerox copies of the same creative. It's that simple."

What's more, Zyman has deliberately moved responsibility for writing strategy in-house, taking it away from the agency account executives and planners. "We are the stewards of strategy," he says. "The advertising agencies are supposed to execute strategies that we devise." Starting in January, he also will roll out a new compensation system for all of Coke's shops, one which he says will reward and motivate them more effectively. Amidst all this change, Zyman has elevated himself above the day-to-day dealings with agencies, leaving that to his director of advertising, David Wheldon. A former agency executive himself, Wheldon has tried to match Zyman's appetite for rewriting the agency rules with a new set of rules about agency conduct and performance. "

Ed. The is, of course the same 'Vodafone' David Wheldon...who contributed to our own first100 days research. Clearly, 'once a reformer...'