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Interesting people, insightful points of view and incredible stories on what’s popping and not popping in marketing, tech, and culture you can use to win immediately. Brands, Beats and Bytes boldly stands at the intersection of brand, tech and culture. DC and Larry are fascinated with stories and people behind some of the best marketing in the business. No matter how dope your product, if your marketing sucks your company may suck too. #dontsuck
DC: Brand Nerds! Brands, Beats, and Bytes, back at you. First show in 2025. Album Seven. Track one. Larry, album seven? Year seven? Like, what?
LT: What? Crazy, right?
DC: Oh, seven years. I remember, uh, Larry, uh, way, way back, Brand Nerds, when, um, websites were first coming into vogue. And after a while, uh, when, when they first came out, if someone had a website, I was like, Larry, wow, this company has a website.
They must be really, they're like really legit. And then a few years later, it's like, every damn body had a website. It's like, ah, website. Same thing with podcast now. Like we started our podcast seven years ago, felt like really special and new. And now everybody's got a podcast. Uh, Brand Nerds, we still love our podcast and we are quite happy that you continue to support us.
So LT, we have a, um, A guest today with a, um, as, uh, as said, spoken by Liam Neeson, uh, on the, uh, on the, on the movie that I, I really love all of these movies, but Taken the franchise, the first one, he he's talking to the kidnappers of his daughter. Y'all Brand Nerds for you all who have not seen this movie.
You have to check this. And so he's, he's talking to, uh, one of the captors of his, uh, of his, uh, of his daughter and they're kind of dismissing him on the phone. And Liam Neeson says, I have a particular set of skills. Okay. Basically saying to them, I'm gonna find your ass. Okay. I'm gonna hunt you down today.
Brand Nerds. We have a guest with a particular set of skills, and I'm going to describe the skill now, and not all marketers have the skill. The skill is this Brand Nerds, the ability to market something that is a want so well that consumers view it as a need. That that's the unique skill set of our guests today.
So Brand Nerds, I think Procter and Gamble is one of the greatest companies that has ever been, um, created and their brand management training stands as some of the best in the world, but here's the deal. Um, you need to wash your clothes. Yeah, you, you do need to wash your clothes.
LT: I hope so.
DC: I hope so. Yep. You, you, you need, you need to brush your teeth. Yeah, you need to brush your teeth. You need to shave. You know, you need to shave. You don't need to shave. But I think I'm getting to a point out here where I do maybe need to trim up a bit. But these are things that that in the modern world one needs to do.
You never need to drink a Coca Cola. You don't need to drink a cold Coca Cola. You want to drink a Coca Cola. You desire to drink a Coca Cola. You relish drinking a Coca Cola. And part of that is about the product and the many products in a non alcoholic beverage space. Much of that is about the marketing and mastery, uh, of, of that marketing.
And with that today, who do we have in the building with us? LT?
LT: Ooh, that's a great setup. B, great setup for the first show of the year. DC We have Shakir Moin in the house today. Welcome, Shakir.
Shakir Moin: Thank you so much. And Darryl, what, what an amazing introduction. . I, I'm gonna play that to my kids.
LT: We're not even close to. We're not even close to done yet, Shakir. DC, did a great preamble. We're not even close to done. So you're going to have to sit back and relish what's coming. Okay. So, okay. Brand Nerds, DC said, our guest Shakir has quite a lot to do with Coca Cola Company marketing since Shakir is currently the President of Marketing, for Coca Cola, North America. In this role, he oversees marketing for the entire portfolio of the Coca Cola company brands in North America. But let's walk you through Shakir's unique path to earning this major role. So, okay. Beginning in his native Pakistan, Shakir earns an MBA from Institute of Business Administration, and then he embarks upon his marketing career. First is a brand manager with Gillette, and after four years there, he joins Coca Cola, which is the start of his very successful 28 years and counting with the company. Shakir's first job with Coke is a brand manager role in Pakistan, and he then earns his first promotion to be a group brand manager in Malaysia. Shakir steadily rises through the ranks as a marketing director in different countries throughout the Pacific Rim, such as Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines, which is wrapped around the general manager assignment in Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei. Clearly, Shakir is making an impact. He is then promoted to be marketing director for all of Southeast Asia.
Okay. So two years later in 2013, Shakir is tapped to become the VP CMO for Coca Cola, Greater China, and Korea, which encompasses China, Korea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Mongolia. It's the third biggest operation for the Coca Cola company in the world with revenues of more than $9 billion. And that's where he leads marketing strategy, innovation, and execution for Coca Cola, China, and he has a team of 100 plus marketers across brand management, content, design, innovation, e commerce, digital, social, etc. Okay, so after four really successful years in this position, though, folks in headquarters on North Avenue notice, and they have Shakir moved to Atlanta, becoming VP of Global Strategic Initiatives and after less than a year, he quickly gains more responsibility, becoming VP and Chief of Staff for Global Growth Function where he's responsible for growth operations and leading global strategy global marketing charters innovation strategy and pipeline development growth capability development and strategic communications All right So after two great years in global growth, Shakir has tapped on the shoulder to become the COO of Costa Coffee, a brand now that is wholly owned by Coca Cola.
In 2023, after great success with Costa Coffee, including spending the last eight months as their interim CEO, Coca Cola then asked Shakir to move into his current role, President of Marketing at Coca Cola North America. Well, that is Shakir's wondrous path. Here are some other items we think you will find interesting.
Shakir always has the ethos that, quote, great people build great brands, and he bakes this into all that he does professionally. In Shakir's 28 years at the Coca Cola company, he has lived in 11 countries and has won the Coca Cola Marketing Excellence Award twice. CMO Asia recognizes Shakir with the Asian Super Achiever Award.
In 2013, Shakir has the rare experience of developing and executing a launch campaign for Coca Cola and a totally new Coca Cola market, Myanmar, which is really a very unique experience. In 2023, Shakir is selected by Campaign USA. for its annual CMO 50 list, recognizing the most intrepid and culture making brand marketers.
And also in 2023, Shakir is selected as one of the 50 most outstanding Asians in America by the Asian American Development Center. In closing, Shakir currently resides in Atlanta. with his wife, Sana, and children, Mariam and Danielle. Really looking forward to this one. Welcome to Brands, Beats, and Bytes, Shakir Moin.
Shakir Moin: Thank you, Larry. Now I'm blushing, and the only visual I had was, I wish my mother was alive to listen to this. She would have been somewhat proud.
LT: Somewhere she's hearing it, Shakir.
Shakir Moin: Fingers crossed.
DC: Indeed, she is, um, we really like, uh, watching the faces of our guests, uh, Shakir, as Larry goes through their accomplishments in some ways with our guests, it's as if they're listening to it not from the perspective of someone who's actually done it, but of themselves as a viewer. It's like, you know, it's akin to an out of body experience, and, uh, the same thing happened here, as you were listening to it, I could see you go, Mm, uh, uh, okay.
Shakir Moin: That too, I didn't know that.
DC: Yeah, yeah, that's right.
That's right. Uh, your flowers brother. You've earned this. Larry just states the facts. He just states the facts.
Shakir Moin: Thank you.
DC: You're welcome, Shakir. We are on to the get comfy section. As you know, Shakir, both Larry and I are Coca Cola alums. When I was there, I had, uh, one of my roles was in the global group.
So I traveled all over the world and it was one of the most eye opening experiences of my entire life. You have lived in 11 countries, not visited 11 countries, lived in 11 countries. And, uh, you know, this very well, Shakir, um, Marketing is, is about human behavior. And oftentimes it's about psychology, really understanding the mind of a consumer, given your global experience, please share with the Brand Nerds.
What have you found to be a commonality, commonality amongst humans, no matter the country. And what are some key differences you've noticed across countries?
Shakir Moin: So, you know, of the, of the 11 countries that I've had, I've been been privileged to live and work with. Nine of them don't speak English. It's not their primary language.
So as I move from country to country to country, US and UK are the only two countries where English is the number one language, the primary language of communication. So a critical challenge, and I remember the first, my first move was to Sri Lanka. Um, and the, the thought was, well, I don't un like coming from a home country, I can look at a tagline and I can understand every single meaning underneath that.
DC: Mm-hmm .
Shakir Moin: I can watch an ad and I can, I can hear, listen to the music and appreciate the lyrics. And I had none of that in majority of the markets where, like, where I lived. But the, the, the superpower that I sort of discovered not as a superpower within me, but the power of, uh, of somebody new coming into the market was because I don't know anything or I didn't knew anything, everything is new and I learned everything from scratch and things that people take for granted was always, always new for me.
And I ended up discovering a lot more just because. I was wearing lenses which were new to the market than pretty much everyone else in the market and that's a gift I guess for people like me who have lived and worked in different countries or try to support different markets in different ways So to your question, you know living in in in these markets um The interesting thing and if I were to reflect back of 30 years of doing this is human beings are essentially the same and my most visceral example, a mother in Sri Lanka is the same as a mother in China, the same as a mother in the U. S. or in the U. K. or in Singapore or in Malaysia or in Hong Kong. The notion of motherhood. The fundamental DNA is the same and that provides at least brands and, you know, the Brand Nerds who would want eventually to work for global brands or build businesses that are global in nature is we often get distracted by a by by the dissimilarities versus the similarities. And I think there's too much in common for us to not appreciate in this beautiful, beautiful part of humanity, which interestingly, Darryl, then, you know, makes our job somewhat easier because if you, if you base yourself on understanding humanity, you can start to, you know, take those learnings out and, um, when you go from market to market to market.
Now, within that context, I'll, I'll, I'll share some examples with you as well. Whilst motherhood is the same, how the behaviors and actions are manifested are, are different. And that's where the differential comes in. You know, the, a mother's love for a child and daughter is universal. There is no, if there was a way to measure it, I think we'll find it in the same measurement scale.
How that love is manifested is very, very different. But as we, um, and as I especially sort of navigated to country to countries, there was an, as part of a beautiful global company constantly figuring out and navigating on here's a global idea that can go across every market versus here's an idea that probably needs adjustment.
Because consumers may decode this idea very differently. Versus an idea that just doesn't work because it doesn't connect with the, how the society has developed and progressed over, over time. So just to put an example in, when I was based out of, uh, China, uh, China opened up in 1977 with den shopping, you know, experimenting with this idea of opening up. And then it was about 20 years of experimentation, early 2000, China fully opened up. And as we work with our own people, our, uh, you know, the team that I was lucky and fortunate to work with, we realized that unlike most countries, it was the first and second generation of people who were actually working in companies.
Oh, interesting. Uh, and you would take that for granted, right? And in the U S I, I don't, I've never bothered to even ask on, so which generation, right? You know, of an employee base are we sitting in?
DC: It would be an odd question here.
Shakir Moin: It's multi generational, right? And what's the value of asking that question as well versus, uh, versus over there and same thing with consumers.
So consumers and a mother in China would want to understand what's inside the product for the same love for that one child that she's so proud and protective of. This is a mother in Philippines wants to just makes a family happy. Yep. So same mother, literally if they were, if they were sitting and breaking bread together, they would both be complaining about the children or being proud of other children. And they would talk about their husband. But when it comes to the decision making process, They have different sort of entry points on how they want to take care of their family and that's because evolution of the culture um religion comes and plays a part on it development of society plays a part plays a part on it So multiple varial comes into it and that has been fascinating for me to constantly decode understand and then you know use to connect our brands in a in a more meaningful way
LT: That's a great, that's a snippet that you provided, Shakir, is awesome.
And what I'm struck by DC is that Shakir is always listening. Because if you don't take the time to listen and sort of, you know, think about your surroundings and listen and, and, uh, also watch and listen, right? Taking your surroundings and too often us marketers always want to go go go and go do things And you've got to listen first and take in everything and take in the culture and take in everything that's around you before you can make the best moves because That those examples, uh that you provided of the manifestation of a mother's love in two different countries That are in the asian rim are very different.
Um, and if you're not Acculturated to what's going on you're going to lose it.
Shakir Moin: Absolutely. And it's also right to the to the point on It's listening watching observing because Everything matters, right? uh, and i'm going to use again the two examples of the two two markets that I was, uh, I was part of Um, Philippines, majority of the population is in the CD income group.
You know, uh, yeah. It's still an emerging market, right? China is, is more developed, um, on, on most parts of the, of, of the, of the country. The cues of packaging, you know, what we put on packaging.
DC: Mm-hmm . Mm-hmm .
Shakir Moin: Uh, in a market which is emerging if a beautiful package goes on the table itself. Or when the guest comes in, they would serve directly from the package.
In an emerge market, they would pour the same Coke, same Sprite, Darryl, the brand that you love so much, in a glass and, and bring it to the guests. So the behavior manifestation changes. So very acutely understanding the cues of the marketplace is, is critical for all of us who are, who are in this craft or brand marketing.
LT: Yes. We talk about this a lot and we can't overstate it, how really observing, listening, watching, Before doing
Shakir Moin: 100%
DC: Brand Nerds. We do this show because some of you all are currently brand managers, some of you all may be close to that, many may be higher than that, but for the brand managers specifically who are looking, aspiring to be CMOs.
We do this for you, to give you jewels, to get you to the CMO level. If we ended this podcast right now, and we're not, Shakir, we're not gonna end it now. But if we did end it right now, Brand Nerds, you got, you got just something magical right here. Right here. Shakir, when you said across the 11 countries, motherhood is the same, but how motherhood is manifested is different.
That's, that's a mic drop, that, that's a mic drop. And then you talked about, uh, while in one country, a mother may be most concerned about the ingredients, what's inside the product for her child. Whereas in another market, I think you said the, the Philippines, that mother is, is most concerned with the happiness of the family, the child and the family.
Uh, this brings me to a quote and a framework brand nerds. Here's the quote, humans, our species make decisions. For emotional reasons and justify with logic. We make decisions for emotional reasons and justifies justify with logic. This is a fact of the human species. And so back to that motherhood, uh, example, the base emotion is love.
That is the base emotion. So here's a framework Brand Nerds that I'm going to recommend. You think about what, why, how, what in this example that Shakir brother, Shakir has given us. The base emotion is, is love. So that's first love. The second, why, is you have to get it. Why is that love so important? What's in that?
What's in, what's, what's in this thing, love, between mother and child? Why is that so important? And then the third is how. How is that manifested? And if you break those down across different countries, you can spring from the same base emotion of love, and then start to go out from there. But you do yourself a disservice if you don't distinctly determine and identify the base emotion.
That's what this brother has just taught all of us.
LT: Yep.
Shakir Moin: But Darryl, what you're teaching, I always thought you were a sage, I think you just proven it. Aristotle's framework of logos, ethos, and pathos is exactly that.
DC: Right.
Shakir Moin: Um, right. Logos, which is logic is all about emotion, about logic, the, the, the justifying the why.
DC: Yeah.
Shakir Moin: Uh, the eat, the, the path, the ethos is who you are and the reason to believe and the battles is the emotional and connectivity. So I take your three dot framework. And, uh, and you put Aristotle on it, which is, it fits so perfectly. So I never knew Aristotle was a marketeer, but I now know that DC, you are Aristotle.
DC: Thank you, my brother.
LT: Yeah, you're, you're, you're, uh, Shaquille O'Neal calls himself the big Aristotle. And you're the normal size Aristotle.
DC: Well, I gotta be the little Aristotle O' Larry. Okay. I appreciate the nicest. I'm five eight. Okay. I'm the little Aristotle. Shakir, thank you for that compliment, brother.
Thank you. Uh, thank you so much. And just a as, uh, as a, as a full disclosure, Brand Nerds. Um, Shakir and I have dined together before. I think he may have just had a Coke and I think I may have had something a bit more substantial. And we just had a conversation. I'll never forget this. We were at the, uh, at the Four Seasons of Bar Margo, and we must've talked Shakir hour and a half or so.
And it was one of the most wonderful conversations. We just talked about marketing and and how humans do what they do and that kind of thing. I looked up and I was like, all this time has passed. So brand nerds, we're just getting started. And with that, we are going to the next section. And we call that next section, Shakir, Five Questions.
I ask you a question. Larry, ask you a question. We go back and forth until we arrive at five. And I get to kick this off. Take yourself back, Shakir, um, to a time where you experienced the brand. And, uh, as you experienced it. Speaking of time passing without noticing, you were so into this brand, Shakir, you thought you were maybe engaged with it for ten minutes?
It's like 40 minutes has gone by you, you, you, you could not get it off of your mind. You did not want to get this brand off of your mind. You wanted it to occupy this gray matter, the frontal lobe, and then the synapses firing almost like a, like a first love, like you were getting some dopamine from this brand for you.
What was that first brand experience for you?
Shakir Moin: You see, sometimes, you know, when this question is asked, um, it's asking like, what is the first brand memory you have, you create on, on the brand? And my answer on that is very different. The question you're answering, asking is so deep. And my answer is very different on it as well. Literally that thing that occupied my mind, I could not stop thinking about it. Then, then for months, for years, and for decades,
DC: Oh, wow.
Shakir Moin: Uh, 1977, Star Wars in cinema.
DC: Ah, yes, yes, yes.
Shakir Moin: I was a kid. Uh, one of my uncles was visiting from the, from, from, from London. Uh, and he said, well, you know, this movie's coming out. Great reviews. Do you want to come and watch? And I was growing up in Pakistan.
There weren't a whole lot of cinemas over there and they would barely have English movies at that time. So, um. So they, they took me and my brother for a treat and I was blown away by, by Star Wars and the ideal Star Wars and mm-hmm . Exactly what he said, that the synapsis in my brain were firing. You know, the lightsabers like, oh my goodness, what is this thing? and I'm still in love with R 2D two in my office at home. I have a mini R 2D two, and that now started in 1977 and hasn't stopped like. I watch every one of the episodes. I follow it. I read it. I read the backstories and I learned so much on storytelling out of Star Wars. So that would be my first deep brand love.
LT: Oh, that's a good one.
DC: Wow. Larry, um, your son, my nephew is a big time Star Wars fan. And um, I have not become a Star Wars fan, I do remember 1977 when it dropped, but I will say this about Star Wars, and I think it's similar to the best marketing, Shakir and Larry, layers. Yes. Layers. One might go into it and think, ah, this is interesting, I like the action in Star Wars.
They just might like the fight scenes. That's it. Whereas someone else might go in and go, is some, is there some family legacy happening here that might manifest itself at some other point in this movie or some other movie is like layers in this thing. Love Star Wars.
Shakir Moin: And guys, I tell you this and Larry, if your son is, um, uh, a fan of Star Wars and if you haven't done it, have you guys visited the Galaxy's Edge and at Disney in Florida?
No,
LT: I have not. No.
Shakir Moin: Listen, as a, as a marketer, not as a Star Wars fan, as a marketer, I would highly recommend you guys to go and visit it. And here's the reason.
DC: Okay.
Shakir Moin: So last year I took my entire marketing team, all 300, a hundred, a hundred of us to Disney with, with this simple sort of realization. I'd taken my kids about a year back.
And it hit me that, you know, people are standing in a queue for an hour, in some cases, two hours, they go to the ride and they, all of them are standing in the queue, no complaints, nobody's swearing, nobody's trying to push. They come out happy, excited. And some of them want to go back. And I told my team, like, I don't think there's anybody else who does such a great job in creating a brand experience as Disney does.
They're really there. Right. So we took our marketing team to Disney to learn about experiences and we were fortunate enough to get a presentation from the Imagineer, uh, who designed Galaxy's Edge. Wow. So once you go there, like he, they told us that, for example, in the Star Wars world, everything is made out of sort of recycled stuff.
Like it looks like somebody put an aluminum piece with something with plastic and create something. Versus Star Trek is very uniform, right? Everything is super slick. There are different worlds. Um, when you go, uh, to, to Galaxy's Edge, and if you look out, you cannot see Disney. The way they've designed it, you look outside, you like, you look up and you cannot see anything but that world because you are in an immersive world.
Most fans who go to Star Wars, uh, to the, to the, to the attraction are looking for the Millennium Falcon. And instead of putting it right in front, the moment you enter, you see a Millennium Falcon, you walk through and suddenly you discover Millennium Falcon. And the ride is fantastic. You can make your own lightsaber. You can make your own droid as in Disney has done a fantastic job on taking such an iconic brand and elevating that experience. Highly recommended.
LT: Well, you know, it's interesting, Shakir, again, as, uh, DC alluded to, uh, our son Jake, who's a 21 year old college student now. But when we went to Disney, so this is 15 years ago when he was five and he was way into Star Wars then, they had a, um, a live experience, you know, um, it was a show and he literally, forget Disneyland, he could have spent the whole day watching that show like 20 times. You know, and again, that's when, and that's where you were going in 1977, that when, when brands consume you like that mm-hmm . You just can't get enough.
DC: Yeah. I'll say this, Larry, quickly before we go to the, uh, to the next question, and again, brand nerds, pay attention, pay attention to what brother Shakira is saying.
When he talked about the galaxy's edge, he said the Millennium Falcon one might think as soon as you come in, you'd see it. But they do it in such a fashion where you need to discover it. You, you walk, you meander and then you go, here's the Millennium Falcon. And, uh, we, uh, we, we consumers find some joy out of discovering something rather than being put right in front of us.
There's, there's a, um, a double entendre here and corollary that brother Shakir is bringing forward. In marketing Brand Nerds, consumers are pretty smart. You don't have to put the thing right in front of them.
LT: Yes.
DC: You don't have to put your message right. It's in, in, in whatever content you do. It's second, number two.
You don't have to, it's okay to romance the consumer and have them go on a journey to discover. But the way you do that is you have to earn the right. To have a consumer want to travel the journey. If you've not earned the right, no one's standing in line for two hours. No, that's not happening.
Shakir Moin: Absolutely.
DC: You earn the right, and then you romance them. You romance them. All right, Larry, next question, brother?
LT: Yeah, and just to put a capper on that, that's where you, it goes to what you were talking about being emotive before, D. Yes. To be emotive and to be really connecting on that level, you have to be thinking of that all the time and when you slap something in front of them that is Just more logical. That's where they're more apt to tune you out Okay, second question Shakir who has had or is having the most influence on your career
Shakir Moin: I've been fortunate enough to have many many many people like like most of us, right? Um, uh, Starting from my mother who was always very supportive on whatever I did, you know getting me to like move in many many countries Uh, my wife obviously that support system has been great Uh, you can imagine as a spouse traveling with, you know, every two and a half years has been, has been a blessing for me.
Uh, professionally, um, Coke has been wonderful place where there were many mentors who, who, who sort of helped groom me, develop me. Um, Like any journey, the early part of the journey is very important because that shapes who you are and defines, you know, what, what you end up becoming. Um, when I moved to Malaysia, I was a very young brand manager, actually, Darryl working on Sprite, that was my first assignment in Malaysia.
And the, my, the CMO at that time for Malaysia was a gentleman whose name was Darren Marshall. Darren is. Now the CEO of a, uh, of a, of a company over here called, uh, Smith TeamMaker, uh, and Darren sort of, uh, was an interesting balance of analytics, uh, and humanity, but he leaned more on analytics. And a lot of time marketing sort of doesn't move into analytics that much.
Um, and he sort of taught me, force me, nudge me, did whatever he needed to do to bring the science of marketing into brand marketing. So I remember as a, as a very young brand manager, we would get this data books, like huge books, which would carry all the data on the brand. And there was so heavy that, uh, you know, some of my female colleagues used to ask me like, Now, once you're done, can you actually bring the, the, the, the book to our table?
Because too heavy for us to lift and we would have large scales and we would look at data and then plot that data and understand what was happening to, to sales, to velocity, to equity. I think at that time it was a pain to go through this, but 20 years later, it has become a muscle because it's like anything, right?
The humanity part of it is, What makes a brand differentiated from a product, but the science is what gives you an edge on understanding variables on understanding what is going right and wrong. And in this world of increasingly high data and numbers. Anybody who understand this has a massive competitive advantage.
So I would call him out as someone who has a, who had, um, a material impact on how my mind started to think differently around marketing. Uh, the other one is our current CMO, and not only because he's current CMO, but Manolo, he's a current CMO of, uh, of the company. Manolo was uh, I've interacted with Manolo three times in my career. I'm a bad penny in his life. I keep on emerging um and Manolo is uh, uh When I interacted with him, he was in a general management role. So he wasn't a marketer, he was the operating unit president looking after our ASEAN business unit and I remember one day I was um as a as his marketing head. I was presenting uh a co campaign to him And he looked at it and he said, yeah, this is really, really good.
Why? He said, Shakir, it doesn't feel Coca Cola. And I, I was, this thing was going by. I, what the hell does this feel Coca Cola? And then for two hours, he took me through the values of the brand. Spirit of the brand, the ethos of the brand. He said, listen, the storyboard is good. It's right in every way. You need the personality, the soul of the brand to come out.
And I was almost 10 years into Coke at that time. I'd done Coke in multiple markets. And at that moment I realized, oh my goodness, I thought I understood the brand, but if I don't understand the soul of the brand, I don't understand anything. And Darryl recall the, the, the meaning that you quoted in the Four Seasons was that the purpose of that meeting was precisely that to understand the soul of Sprite. Who can I go and understand the soul of Sprite? And he was so generous to take me through that. So with Manolo, I learned that, which has been an invaluable experience as you know, as I now look at a massive portfolio of brands, each one of them have different souls, but if you don't get that right, we don't do good service to these beautiful brands that have been built by people like you, Daryl, in some cases, and some new brands that we are building for hopefully for the next hundred years.
LT: Yes. D, you have any thoughts?
DC: I do, quickly. Interesting brand nerds that Shakir gave. Two examples. One of Darren, about bringing Shakir along the science path. Injecting more science into marketing. And then he goes to Manolo, who then asks a question. About the soul of the brand. It doesn't feel Coca Cola is what, is what he said, getting to the soul of the brand, that Brand Nerds is the art.
That's the, this two hours that Shakir went to school with Manolo on the soul of the Coke brand, that's the art. So, uh, so Larry and Brand Nerds, Shakir is talking about both the, the art and science of marketing. And I'm going to go to a, uh, a connection to that. So Brand Nerds, when you are doing so you're building a brand, crafting a brand, and there is a tactic at which you arrive, there will be one of three outcomes.
And one of three outcomes only with this tactic, whether it is a quantitative thing or qualitative thing, either this action is going to increase. The equity value growth of the brand, or two, it's going to decline and decrease the equity value of the brand, or it's going to be steady state. That's what's going to happen with every single touch point.
And your job, Brand Nerds is to run yourself through both the art and science of marketing. To determine how you increase the probability, small little things that you move to make certain that you can answer, yes, I can measure how this thing is increasing the equity of the brand, not decreasing the equity of the brand.
Love that answer. Love it.
LT: Yeah, it's, it's great. And dare I say, DC, I would say there's only two. It's, this is what bodybuilders say about building muscle. You're either building muscle, you know, you work in a building muscle or you're, or you're losing muscle. So there's a mid station in there. Right. Okay. I like that.
That's good. Larry. Um, it's either building the brand or it's not. Um, and you know, uh, what's really interesting Shakir, when you use the example of, of, uh, not understanding, um, the soul of Coca Cola. DC and I have encountered so many people in, in, uh, in our consulting practice who people say, Ah, you know, they'll see that.
I'm just not feeling it. And they stop there. They're just not feeling it. And that drives us crazy because they haven't done the right brief. They haven't done the right homework. What I'm struck with your example is You know, um, well, I'm sorry. What's the gentleman's name? Your CMO. Okay. He said, I'm not feeling it. And then went wax poetic for an hour about why he wasn't feeling it because he, he understood the, what the brand was about, what the positioning of the brand, what the personality was. All the very important things as you alluded to the soul of the brand which will then get into why he's not feeling it and you and Brand Nerds.
This is for you. You must imbue What the personality is about and all the different facets of the architecture of the brand to ensure That people just don't say they're not feeling it because if you don't imbue that in it Then that's where people can go adrift. They might feel something, but it just doesn't feel like Coca Cola because those, those important brand tenants are not part of what's happening in the creative.
DC: All right, we're going to hit the next question. But before we do, damn Shakir, you, you are, this is, this is phenomenal.
LT: Great.
DC: Brand Nerds, uh, the best marketers are elated when they are forced to engage in critical thinking, critical thinking, and what Manolo and Shakir did and Shakir and Darren did is they were involved in bouts of critical thinking.
And, um, and so Brand Nerds. We encourage you to embrace critical thinking and intellectual interrogation, because I guarantee you Shakir, as you were laying out this thing to Manolo in your mind, you had it. I mean, he he's the head of the entire area. He's the operating dude. You thought you had, you didn't go in there going, you know what, uh, I'm going to present this to Manolo.
He's not going to like it. And he's going to spend two hours schooling me on the soul of the brand. You thought you had it. As a result of him doing what he did, he was in a dance of critical thinking and intellectual interrogation with you, and you did not get defensive. Your, your ears and heart opened.
Not closed. Super dope. Super dope.
Shakir Moin: It's, um, in what I learned out of this, right? Obviously I learned so much about Coca Cola, but I learned, uh, like to your example, like I get to see a lot of stuff and I would kill myself if I was to give this feedback that I don't like it. That's useless feedback. Totally, especially, and it's disrespectful as well, right?
People have worked their heart and soul on it, but it is useless feedback versus providing exactly what that is. In some cases, follow up. So these things matter, uh, especially to young people who are not coming in. They will at some point in time, be leading people, always use an opportunity to help people grow and which is critical.
The output of this was You know, these things pay a dividend and in this case to Manolo. So Larry, you mentioned that I was very fortunate to be part of a new country where the Coca Cola company entered with, and this was Myanmar. So Myanmar was opening up in 2012. And we wanted to be, uh, the first CPG to enter the country.
Uh, now imagine you can visualize it's a high profile entry, right? It's, uh, the country's opening up, um, you know, the, the WordPress is, is sort of looking into this. They're looking at how the country is going to transform. Uh, Coca Cola is a very visible brand. And we had a lots of points of views on, as we go into the country, what, what are we going to say?
Like, what, what is our message? So I took a, I went to, uh, to Yangon, uh, there are no agencies, there are no research companies. There's no data. There's nothing.
DC: No, no, no. IMC groups.
Shakir Moin: No IMC. Nothing at all. And what an amazing learning ground, right? So the only way to learn is the way human beings learn from each other, which is go and observe and talk to people.
So I went into homes. I sat with people, I ate the food along with my team. So we did all of this and come back And then obviously there's um As you can imagine in a large organization people have points of views on what we want to say Our global campaign was open happiness at the time And somebody had a point of view.
Well, what a great line we are opening happiness and the when we understood from uh, the You The Burmese people It was very clear that that line would have sounded very arrogant to people, right?
Is a brand that's coming in somewhere you weren't happy before not true. Yeah.
Yeah, actually they were they were okay.
DC: Yeah,
Shakir Moin: They obviously are more optimistic today. And now we are going to do this. So because of Manolo's push to understand the brand, One of the things we did was we said, well, maybe go and understand when the Coca Cola company went into different new markets, what did we say? Because we have almost 140 years of history preserved in our archives.
So when we entered, re entered India, when we, when the Berlin wall fell, when we entered South Africa, um, when we first entered Mexico, like what were the messages?
DC: Yeah.
Shakir Moin: And as we were digging into this, the, the, we said, well, you know what, what, let's go and look at the first market where we entered, which was Atlanta.
Yeah. The message there.
And interestingly, we found out that in every single one of these market where we entered, our core message was a promise of. Uh, refreshing, uh, and upliftment, and actually it was more defined as delicious and refreshing, which was literally the first poster, which was used in 1890 or 1894 in Atlanta. And so that was how the campaign was launched in, in, in Myanmar. So our marketing campaign in Myanmar in 2012 was a marketing campaign of Coke in 1890, literally.
LT: That's really cool.
Shakir Moin: And that happened because one person decided to spend two hours of his time Helping a young person be a little bit more wiser about the brand that he thought he knew a lot better
LT: Oh D I have to jump in here I love the fact that you went you talk about the soul of the brand. That's really the soul of the brand right the core of the brand and Shakir. We lament on this podcast a lot. Um, So often in the brand management system, when people circle onto different brands, that, uh, something could be working fantastically well, but somebody else, you know, cycles onto the brand. And they want to make their mark and sometimes things just change because the new person wants to make their mark rather than what's really right for the brand.
And for you to actually do your homework and go back to the soul in 1894 of what the brand is about says so much because I think too often we as marketers move off of things that are working. When in fact, we should just go deeper into what is working rather than just do something different because it's different.
Shakir Moin: Absolutely. Right. And Dino's is better because we went through the same journey recently on Sprite in the U. S. and we looked at this and said that the best time of Sprite was 1990 when this brilliant person decided to move the brand that, that, that notion of Sprite from a product to a brand. And under this wonderful idea called Obey Your Thirst. And what was wrong with this was a question. And we realized that for various reasons, as in somebody decided to change it. And without an iota of ego, we went back, understood as much as we can, including Darryl was so, so generous for spending his time with me. We said, let's bring it back because it works. And it's okay that my name is not going to be there. I proudly say that it was Darryl's word because it was, but it's the right thing to do for the brand and not for an individual.
LT: And you know what? I can say it. He it's gonna be harder for him. But I was down the hall watching him do it in the mid nineties, Shakir and you know what he did was incredible. And it does stand the test of time. And we've actually had some folks who are on the podcast who talked about moving away from Obey Your Thirst. And it goes back to what I was just talking about. We got to keep the S when something's working, you know, it's sort of like in sports.
You know, when a play is working, let the other team stop it, keep doing the same thing until somebody stops it. And, you know, and invariably if you build upon what's working, uh, and, and you're smart about it, you can actually strengthen everything.
DC: Absolutely. We're going to move on to the next question. I'm a, I'm a little embarrassed right now. So the next question, Shakir, you have had. An innumerable count of W's, wins, throughout your career, and you've had them in different countries and different languages. At least nine from where you lived. This question has nothing to do with those wins though, Shakir.
This has to do with your F Ups. Big, stinky, nasty F Up of your career and what you, importantly, learned from it.
Shakir Moin: Yeah, um, so my concept, first of all, Daryl, is that if you don't have enough of those There's something wrong. You're not trying hard enough and you cannot be successful without that. Uh, second is we are all human and we should not be shy about when we do this because we are bound to do it.
We are designed as, you know, you quoted the Liam Neeson movie, uh, if you remember, uh, Steve Jobs, uh, the movie and in one of the last scene, the daughter, uh, he's having a session with his daughter. And the daughter said that why did you do what you did and he said I'm poorly made. Yeah, I didn't know that.
DC: Yeah, great line.
Shakir Moin: It's a brilliant line. Adam Salkin. Um, so it is this I think so. I Um, of the many, and I, I'm going to pick examples where I'm, which I'm going to attribute directly a hundred percent to me because there are certain things that I take accountability of as a leader. Everything my team does, I'm a hundred percent accountable. But the ones that I learned the most from are the ones that I create
my own thing. A hundred percent mean, there's no doubt about it. I was in Malaysia in between 2003 to 2000 and, uh, uh, and five, um, sorry, 98 to 2000 and 2003. Malaysia is a Muslim country and the Muslims celebrate, uh, the month of Ramadan, which is a month of fasting.
DC: Mm-hmm .
Shakir Moin: So going back to human behavior, 30 days of fasting. They don't eat or drink anything from sun, sunrise to sunset, no water, no food, nothing goes. And at sunset they you can eat or drink anything you want. There's a ritual Uh, which is islamic ritual to break or open your fast or start eating with that with a date, the fruit, So I had this brilliant idea that instead because date is a fruit. Why not make a date juice? And I got our R and D team to work on it. And they, uh, they created a really delicious product. We went out, we tested the product and the consumers gave, gave us five thumbs up, ready to go. And we thought we had a great idea to revolutionize Ramadan and, you know, be a more meaningful player in Ramadan. And we launched it and it was a absolute bomb and like it was a very visible launch Ramadan is a visible period. Uh, it is a high sales period as well Both of you know our bottling partners rely on us on us a lot not to mess up on any given Mm. And I, it was a failure. It wasn't a, you know, a light hit or a light mess.
It was a, it was a big failure. Mm-hmm . What I missed totally was connecting the dots between the, the, what the consumers were telling us, giving us thumbs up on a product versus a ritualization. Mm-hmm .
DC: Right.
Shakir Moin: And here was a misses. Right. The miss. The first miss was, there's a ritual of eating dates that goes. It's almost thousands of years, thousands of years back.
Yes, exactly. You can't ritualize. Something cannot be ritualized. They just cannot be. What we got people to taste was a great tasting product. And yes, we never asked people, would you replace your date with this juice? Because if we would have asked that question, they would have said, no, we love it, but we will not do this.
We said, would you drink this? They say, yes. Would you drink a lot? They said, yes. And one bad question or one miss of a question changed everything. Number two Because the product was launched in Ramadan dates are only consumed during Ramadan So we needed to have enough trial for people to buy it again because nobody's gonna buy a new product In a month, which is very ritualized because remember for I only have three hours or four hours to eat and drink I'm not going to experiment with a new product. We needed a trial to be brought in way in advanced, at least two or three months in advance. The problem is nobody sort of regularly eats Dates or drink day juice three to four months in advance of Ramadan, right? So we failed over there as well and the third big miss was that what do you do after Ramadan? So it's a one that's what I was gonna
LT: That's what I was thinking what yeah
Shakir Moin: What the hell So it was a mess after mess after mess and the big learning for me was Uh go beyond the obvious questions on consumer testing look at ritualizations and what creates ritualization and My big the biggest biggest aha was to create a habit. You have to replace a habit.\ We already have all the habits built in right as in we have 24 hours. We're doing something which is a habit If you're creating a new habit, you have to take out an existing habit That question or that idea would have made us ask this question. So you're already your existing habit is a date If i'm taking the date out and putting a juice would you accept it and they most likely would have said no And we could have done that So I learned a lot in the process Uh with a very visible sort of product challenge if your time permits, can I give you one more example?
Which is a different lens I joined China in 2013. So I'm moving from Thailand to China, a country I've never lived in. I've been to China a few times before that. And even before the day, like I was supposed to join a week before I was supposed to start, Our head of the water business called me up and said we are launching this new mainstream water at a higher price point.
It's slightly more premium water Uh, it is a source water. So no differentiation Uh, and we work with one of the biggest, uh design consultancies on the planet I'm not going to take a name because the idea is as in It's not about that company if it was us
DC: Right.
Shakir Moin: And the big idea is, uh, we're not going to put a brand on the package.
Instead, we've got to have multiple designs of environment on the package. So there's a branding, but it's too small at the bottom. And, you know, this is disruptive thinking, this is new, all of this. Now, I, I looked at it and said, well, this doesn't make sense to me. My intuition says no.
DC: Right.
Shakir Moin: But I say, well, this is one of the biggest design companies on the planet.
My team is well regarded. They are, they are Chinese. They have been on the roll for multiple years. It will be very arrogant for me to not come in and say, I'm going to pull the plug on this. And I know this better. So we let it go. Uh, and it expectedly didn't work. The five second rule. People are, don't want to be confused at point of purchase.
They want to pick up a brand quickly and move forward. They're not there to admire our packaging. Um, but here was the learning for me, which is I looked at this and, um, the, the sales results were mixed. And I realized that based on the cycle that if I didn't act now, which was four months into the launch, We would lose one full year later on I went to our bottling partners and said listen, sorry. I made I made a mistake
Yeah, remember for wins. There's a reason why win starts with the w because every win has a we but for mess ups It's a I some it's accountability. So I went to the to the bottling part and said listen I messed up but i'm gonna fix it. You're gonna give me two months I'm gonna launch a new proposition right after chinese new year And we're going to get this right because again, we have learnings at our back. So we were able to convince and our system said our bottling partner said, you know what?
Give it a little bit more time. That's okay. You know, we can be patient. I said no here's the data Here's the data that is showing that the repeat purchase is not coming in. That is the most important sign that this product most likely will not last and we have enough data for now three months that is showing us the the future leaning sign that this is going to be a problem.
Um, my biggest learning was that yes, you gotta bring everyone's point of view. You got to learn, but experience creates a sixth sense that you should on most days, not second guess low experience, low sixth sense, high experience, high success and experiences. Winning and losing and spending time in meetings and conference rooms and launching stuff.
All of this is experience, sights and sounds of marketing is experience. We should not second guess that that doesn't mean you should jump on the six cents, but You should not second guess your sixth sense. So since then, that was 2013, almost a decade later, every time my sixth sense says no, that doesn't mean I would, I would say no to a decision, but I would go on a higher level of rigor on that decision.
LT: Love that. Absolutely love that. D, should we go to the next question?
DC: Let's do it, brother.
LT: Shakir, those are two great examples. Thank you for sharing those. Those are great. Okay, so, Shakir, when technology for us marketers has become so big, right, and so when you and your team, we've noticed very closely that you and your team have really leaned into AI.
So can you tell us where you think marketers should lean in or best leverage tech or areas that they, that you think they should be leery or simply avoid?
Shakir Moin: Um, the lean and leery from our side and I'm, I'm, I'm in a deep learning mode right now, uh, because it's a new space, especially with AI and machine learning coming in.
But the big lean in is around predictive decision making number one. And what I mean by that is that today we have enough data that is actually available for free. And then the companies have data, which is sales data and equity data. Uh, and I, this is my, this is my favorite example that I use all the time that I know, for example, that I'm just making it up that on on Saturday is going to rain in Atlanta and we know when it rains, fewer people are out on the road are out of home consumption goes a little bit down and we have enough data that should give us predictability that if it's going to rain on a on a day, what are the set of sort of decisions that we can take to make sure that we continue to grow our business and deliver on our targets.
Similarly, data on, um, what drives brand and I was sharing this example with, uh, with, with Darryl on Coca Cola. We recently brought in, uh, a team, which is team of 10 PhDs is outside our company, uh, to ask this one question. We gave them all our data and said that what attribute of Coca Cola has the highest predictability?
For driving growth for coca cola and you know, the data is allowing us to see through this So predictive decision making is clearly one where we are leaning hard and we think it's going to save a lot of time or brand marketers to stop getting into hard core data digging and use machine learning to look for predictive decisions Eventually, you do need humans to make the decision Make the decision, learn, put it back in.
Right. So one big space. Second is we, we have been experimenting a lot with, uh, generative AI, especially on images. You guys would have seen this. We've been on the news recently on a Christmas ad that we made using artificial intelligence.
LT: We've talked about it.
Shakir Moin: Oh, you did? Okay. Um, and here's a context on this because I, I read a lot of press that has come out, uh, positive and negative.
Uh, and I, obviously I learned from people's point of view, people, some people are anxious about it. Some people are worried about the craft. Um, and it's good to learn these things, but here's a, here's a backstory behind this. The backstory was never to make an ad out of AI. That was not the brief that was written.
The brief that was written was, uh, we had a very good Christmas creative, a good Christmas creative, not very good, but it wasn't great against the benchmarking that we had. So we work with the AI team to say that, listen, um, we were looking at options. Can we, should we create a new ad? Can we take one of the old ones and reuse it if it has not worn out?
And right about that time, this opportunity came in with AI. So we said, well, let's use this very famous Coca Cola ad called holidays are coming, uh, which has a very, very iconic soundtrack. Now AI is still imperfect. So we said that, you know, that ad is short and dark. It's a night scene. A lot of it is trucks.
So it hides the, some of the imperfections of AI. And, um, we said, we're not going to lean into humans. We're going to use animals to create that emotion, that ethos that we talked about. And see what happens. So we develop the ad and then we test it the same testing protocol that goes into every single ad that we that we air and we don't air ads that don't pass our threshold and this is one of the highest tested consumer ads. Now separately, there's a company called systems one that did their own testing and they came with similar results as well. So our jury on this was consumer We said, well, if it's right for consumer, we will do it.
And I was clear that if it's if it's not going to work, we're not going to do it. We learn and we learned a lot even in this process
And therefore we we launched it. It's out in the market touch wood from the from the Mid play results we've seen is doing well by February. We'll have the full results. So we'll learn more on this But this was a good example that I think we're going to lean in into technology to learn experiment You uh to the Earlier question on the missus sometime. We will fail but not moving forward is not an option
LT: Agreed agreed. Love that answer. This is great stuff. Do you want to go to the next question?
DC: I do it is great answer shakir. What are you most proud of brother?
Shakir Moin: Wow Um, I worry about the word proud pride going before the fall. Mm hmm I'm the word I would change is blessed. And question. I would adjust a little bit with your permission is what I'm most blessed with. Yes, please. Fundamentally, I'm most blessed with, uh, with, with, with a great family. Um, I cannot be more happier, more blessed, more. It's truly a blessing. I don't deserve, uh, them as, as great as they are. So blessing number one, uh, blessing number two is. Coke has been a wonderful company for almost 30 years now. I've worked different places, different markets, and it's the people over here. And it's not only the people over here, but it's people out there as in the two of you are Coke alumni. And this place is a wonderful, um, I don't know what the birthplace. Of great talent it attracts good human beings and it keeps those good human beings. So blessed with the team that I work with both the team that works in marketing by the team around me in north america and just generally across. And there's a reason for 30 years whilst many companies have knocked at different times I i've never was never tempted to leave because how how would I leave this this great company because of the people it's great to have the brands as in i'm proud of the brand that you work with But there's a there's an adage I think that somebody has said that you leave not your company but you leave the your the boss you're working with which is essentially you leave because of the people you're working with. And i've not left because none of the people ever gave me the reason to leave so that's blessing number number two And blessing number three guys is that I'm a kid from Karachi. I don't even You wouldn't even know, you know where it would be most likely. Uh, uh, but the odds of me sitting in this office in this room speaking to great people like you when I did my mental maths on this and I recently had someone play an algorithm on this It is less than 0. 5 percent
DC: Hmm Yeah.
Shakir Moin: And, you know, um, uh, Warren Buffett has this beautiful concept called, um, I think college calls it the ovarian lottery and sometimes calls it the genetic lottery or the weighted lottery.
And he talks about himself. And he says that just because I was born in the U S. as a male, right after the great depression was a weighted lottery. And he said that if I was born in some other country, uh, with another sort of, of, uh, of a genetic makeup, I would not have been that successful. So not winning the lottery and just being here, that's a blessing.
This is not, I would not add me to anything else, but just blessing. So three blessings.
LT: That's a mic drop D. Those are awesome, don't you think?
DC: They are, um, and Shakir, thank you. And we're going to modify that question from what are you most proud of to what are you most blessed with. So thank you for that.
LT: That's really cool. All right, Shakir, we are moving to one of our last segments and DC and Shakir, What's Poppin?
DC: What's poppin?
LT: Shakir, this is our chance to shout out, shout down, or simply air something happening in and around marketing today. That we think is good fodder for discussion. So okay, Shakir and D, we've got something, Shakir, that I think you, you could really, uh, uh, help us learn and help the Brand Nerds learn.
So, Um, in 2024, we're, we're obviously starting here in 2025, but in 2024, um, we saw that in at Coca Cola-land portfolio marketing is popping. So in 2024, Shakir, we noticed you bookended some goose bumpy as you use that term. Emotion based creative featuring multiple brands in the spots. So in January of 2024, Shakir and his team hired Chris Storer , the creator and main director of the FX hit series, The Bear.
And he directed a spot for Coca Cola called The New Guy, which by the way, Brand Nerds, if you haven't seen, we'll have in the show notes, it's really a fun, great spot. It's a 90s. There's a 90 second version. There's a 30 as well. And it was made for the Emmy Awards. And then in Q4, Shakir, we also noticed that you ran a spot called Holiday Road.
Again, that's different than the AI version. This is, this is not the AI version. This is a different spot. So while the new guy had Coca Cola, Coke Zero, Diet Coke, Sprite, Smart Water, and Honest Juice, the Holiday Road spot had just Coke based brands, at least as far as we could see, which was Coca Cola, Coke Zero, and Diet Coke.
So certainly each of these brands has its own brand positioning. So, Shakir, today it is so difficult, as we all know as marketers, to grab consumer attention. And we're guessing you are doing what you did to engage people in something that doesn't feel like a traditional ad where it is really genuine and as we talked about earlier more emotive. So for me, it feels like you've really accomplished this with those two two different bookended spots. But at the same time when you do have this portfolio brand approach, each brand is sharing attention and potential connection So we would love to hear your thoughts regarding this portfolio approach and also what have you learned from this approach and do you plan on employing this more in 2025?
Shakir Moin: That's a great question Larry. So listen the backdrop to that to the work that we did in January was It started with what's the problem we're trying to solve. The problem we were trying to solve was um, essentially an operational issue, which is we have About 15 active brands in our portfolio. We have more than 15 brands that we sell in, in the, in the U S but 15 active brand that we advertise regularly.
Uh, now giving them the right focus and push both at point of purchase on media is not possible. There's not enough time in a year to do that, to, to give them justice. So we said, can we approach this from a portfolio lens and see if we can succeed? And if, if, if, if it could, if it could work. With a caveat that I had done this twice in my career and I'd failed. This was not an epic failure, but it was an utter total disaster.
LT: It wasn't the biggest F up, but it was a F up.
Shakir Moin: It wasn't a biggest F up, but it was a F up. And so again, the advantage of failure is learning. So part of the pullback was why did we fail or why did I fail? And the failure was because we said that we're going to communicate to consumers consumers.
That the Coca Cola Company has these brands consumers don't care the coca cola company has these brands, right? They want to drink a powerade During or after sports and a core power right after sports for muscle building and recovery and water for thirst quenching so and so forth So that was that was a business issue.
So we went into um, then from a consumer lens and as we were mining not data, but understanding human observation around that work, we realized that, and you guys will attest to this. If you invite some guests at your home, you would never have one beverage. You'd have multiple beverages, right? All of us on any given day drink multiple beverages.
I, I was, drinking Sprite in order of Darryl in my cup over here. I had a coffee in the morning. I had two cokes. I had water. So that's our life. And so, well, yes, as a brand purist, I, I built brand, but the human consumption is around choices. Uh, and, but the idea is not choices. So what we strategize was this idea and said, well, we'll try and maybe we'll fail, but we will never know unless we try, which is.
Stop communicating the portfolio as the portfolio of the Coca Cola company and make our brands relevant with consumers. At a moment in time, which was January, January is very close to Super Bowl. And, you know, is it a moment where a game is being watched and there's a, and in that day or in that particular moment, They won't be drinking only Coke or a Sprite or a Powerade.
They would have multiple beverages. That was a brief that was written and because we were worried that it is going to become a Coke ad, uh, I gave that project to the creative head who runs actually a juice business so that it doesn't become a Coke ad. And to Chris Storer our request was that because obviously he was working with the Coca Cola company, if you don't show Coke, because it's not the right thing to do, because it doesn't fit in the story, don't do that.
We have to be brutally true to the, uh, to, to the human inside. So Chris did a wonderful job with that. We, we build that work, um, and we had it ready. Now here's what we did on top of it. And you guys being Coke alumni would know. That coke does a lot of uh execution at point of purchase. So for example, uh in gyms, we would show up we would have a poster of Powerade and powerade available over there at a mexican eating place.
We would have a taco with Coca Cola
Uh, so we do these executions throughout the year What we did this with this campaign was we created 40 000 individual digital messages 40 000
DC: Wow.
Shakir Moin: A message would be this, that in a Mexican eating place, you get a taco with Fanta and, uh, with, uh, with Topo Chico. Versus in a supermarket, you are buying, you are, you are in sports and you're buying a CorePower and a Powerade. Versus with a burger, you are getting a Coke and a Sprite. Right. So 40, 000 of these. Using machine learning on what is the right occasion and the right beverage. And using programmatic media, we delivered those messages exactly to the consumer who wants. So the Powerade message and the CorePower message went exactly to people who are working out or who care about their health, etc, etc. So that was the launch of the campaign that went out. Um, we tested the ad as we did the ad tested really well. We launched it. The execution went really well. Our equity numbers went up. Our share numbers went up, our business grew. So we knew it worked. So the ethos then, and then there was a internally, we had discussion of, well, are we going to move everything to portfolio? And the answer is no. Because remember the, in that household, somebody who choicefully picked up a Diet Coke, chose a Diet Coke because of the memory we created around Diet Coke with that individual.
So throughout the year we have to build brands, but we have to find opportunistic moments where we can leverage our portfolio because we have a wonderful portfolio. That that we can use hence for homecoming or the holiday run. We only use Coca Cola trademark brand So it was called Diet Coke and and Coke Zero Because of the spirit of festivity it didn't make sense to fit other brands in it Uh, and what I can, uh, pretease you that we have a wonderful creative shot by another acclaimed director coming January of 2025.
So in a couple of days, out to that, and it's based on the same learning because it worked, you want to continue doing it and do it better.
LT: Really interesting. Brand Nerds you heard that here first.
DC: Yes. And, uh, given that this show is going to drop, uh, is dropping in January, which you Brand Nerds are hearing now, Shakir if you would like us, depending on when this drops, to put a link to that piece of content. If, if it, if this all lines up, we're happy to do that.
Shakir Moin: I'll do that. I'll absolutely do that. It would be a pleasure.
DC: Awesome. Thank. So your answer about this portfolio, great setup on the answer, uh, LT about portfolio. Uh, so Brand Nerds, it reminds me of something that Larry and I talk about in our practice, Shakir, is that there are three fundamental brand strategies for any company anywhere in the world.
And the three fundamental, um, uh, strategies from a portfolio perspective are the following. You're either going to have an uber brand strategy. And uber brand with sub brand strategy or a solo brand strategy. Uber brand is Nike, Nike, everything, football, soccer, basketball, baseball, uh, doesn't matter. It's all Nike, Nike, Nike.
Their one exception is Brand Jordan, but that is the exception. Everything else is Nike. Uber brand with sub brands that's Toyota. So you have the umbrella of the Toyota brand. Beneath it, you have these sub brands that are all pulling equity from the Toyota brand. The Prius brand has a little elbow room to move so that they can show up to their consumers and customers different than the Tacoma brand, for example.
Yeah. But they still are drawing from the, umbrella brand called Toyota. And then the third one, uh, here is the solo brand. This is Procter and Gamble. They want Tide to be Tide, Gillette to be Gillette, uh, on its own. And they do not care if the, if the consumer knows they all come from Procter and Gamble or not.
They have, they have no interest in that whatsoever. And so it's interesting to us that Shakir You all, uh, and I will say we, because we are Coke alums, we grew up with mostly the solo brand piece of this in the, in the latter years, but you go back a hundred years ago and Coke was an uber brand. It was Coke, Coke, that's it, everything's Coke, Diet Coke, Caffeine free Coke, it was just Coke, Coke, Coke.
So this is a, uh, a fascinating thing that you're, you're playing with now.
LT: It is.
Shakir Moin: It is. And we're learning the process, right? As in it's, I said the first year was good. I was really good. We're now getting to the second year. Uh, the premise is this right. I, and I don't know, uh, Darryl, I shared this with you or not.
There's a quote from Churchill, which is on Russia. So I, I sort of adjusted that quote to talk about what is a brand. I always ask this question. So define a brand. And my definition of a brand is a brand is a promise wrapped in an experience inside a memory. The promise wrapped in an experience inside a memory.
The Churchillian court is Russia is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside in an egg, but just for reference.
DC: So give, give me, give me your twist on that again.
Shakir Moin: Yeah wrapped in an experience inside the memory.
DC: Got it.
Shakir Moin: And my push always is that the difference between a product and a brand is the memory So for each one of the brand as brand purists We have to create these wonderful memories that trigger again and again gets guests reminded If there's no memory, then it's just a product.
I don't have a memory of the tap water with which I brush my teeth with.
Right. Yeah. Right. No memory.
I had a, I actually have a good memory of a Coke I shared with someone today in the office, because that was a memory again, that reinforce a memory. So we got to continue doing this. But do we find great moments where those memories can be enhanced collectively with, with these beautiful brands is the experimentation that we are in right now.
LT: And also one quick capper on this. You're also taking what you said with the 40, 000 iterations, you have a portfolio, and then you're taking it down into the micro of each brand. Yes. Good Larry. Accomplishing both. Which is really cool. All right, gents, we are close time. Uh, DC, I'm going to do very quick. Uh, I, Shakir, this, you've been amazing, better than we thought.
And we thought you'd be amazing. So I'm going to do just some quick rapid fire ones. Um, Brand Nerds like Shakir notice when moving into new country, how can you make sure you get a fresh lens that can help elevate your marketing? Number two, observe and listen before doing. Uh, number three, lean into analytics and find your magic metrics that you can build upon, just like DC did back in his early days with Sprite, where his nugget was that there was a higher brand development index for Sprite in urban areas.
Okay. And then the, the last one I'm going to do this quick is I love this Shakir like Shakir does your wins should have a, "we", your losses should have an "I". Those are mine.
DC: Larry. That is a phenomenal Shakir brother. That's a wrap. That's a wrap. You, you were, you were phenomenal, man. Yes. You were absolutely phenomenal.
Thank you so much.
Shakir Moin: No, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for inviting me. It's quite a pleasure to speak to both of you. Uh, Larry, I followed you briefly on, on, on Powerade. I would love to catch up on you as an I, I am so enamored by people like you who have built these wonderful brands for us.
LT: You're going to be sorry you said that we would love to take you up on that because I got a lot of thoughts.
Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. Okay. So that'd be great. That's a great wrap Brand Nerds thanks for listening to the Brands Beats and Bytes. The executive producers are Jeff Shirley, Darryl DC Cobbin, and Larry Taman and Hailey Cobbin, and Jade Tate and Tom Di'oro yes. And if you do like this podcast, please subscribe and share.
And for those on Apple podcasts, if you are so inclined, we love those excellent reviews. We hope you enjoyed this podcast and we look forward to next time where we will have more insightful and enlightening talk about marketing.