Neil Bedwell of Coca-Cola: We tell part of the story and consumers tell the rest

Neil Bedwell, global head of digital for The Coca-Cola Company, gave a talk at the Miami NATPE in a conference dubbed Masters of Messages: Content in 2020.In his presentation he said that telling stories is the heart and soul of what they do: “Before we told them in 30-second spots, now we do it on all screens at all times.”To meet the greater demand for content, Coca-Cola has developed the following formula: a 70-percent sharing of content already known, a 20-percent share of content that works for other brands, and the remaining 10 percent is invested in something totally new, leaving space to assume the whole risk. “This is the most fun,” Bedwell said.The executive said they will continue working with big agencies, though direct relations with different talent around the world will increase.He said Coca-Cola is part of an ecosystem largely fed by consumers: “We tell part of the story and consumers tell the rest.”Our job is to inspire consumers to generate more content. We have made one out of every four Coca-Cola videos on YouTube and consumers have made the rest,” he said.He said they realized it wasn’t effective to make a big investment in a single platform – it is vastly better to invest in mobile content that moves across and integrates into different social networks, where he admitted that brands are not all that welcome.