For decades, marketers have treated brand love as one of the highest forms of success. Consumers recognize you, talk about you, wear your logo and tell researchers they feel emotionally connected to the brand. Coca-Cola, one of the most recognizable brands in the world, is increasingly interested in a different question: does any of that actually make people buy the product?
Coca-Cola’s chief marketing and customer commercial officer Manolo Arroyo has made the shift unusually explicit. “With age and experience, I can say I do not believe in love anymore,” he said. His point was less cynical than the line suggests. Millions of people may say they love Coca-Cola, or even wear the logo on a T-shirt, while rarely drinking it. For the company, affection without behavior has limited commercial value.
That thinking is now shaping what Coca-Cola wants from its next major agency partnership. The company has its multibillion-dollar global media, data and technology business under review, and Arroyo says the next phase will demand deeper capabilities in creators and influencers, retail media, commerce and, crucially, attribution. Coca-Cola wants to understand more clearly how marketing investment travels from content and experiences to transactions and actual consumption.
From Brand Love to Behavior
The distinction sounds simple, but it changes the role of marketing considerably. Traditional brand metrics can tell a company whether people know it, like it or associate it with certain qualities. Coca-Cola increasingly wants those signals connected to what people subsequently do.
Arroyo recalled internal debates in which sales were rising while brand-love scores were not. From his perspective, the commercial result mattered more. “Marketing is about changing human behavior, getting someone to drink this instead of that,” he said.
For a company operating across products, markets, retailers, restaurants, live events and digital platforms, that means media can no longer sit comfortably apart from commerce. A creator video, sports sponsorship, retail activation and social campaign may all contribute to the same customer journey. The challenge is connecting those pieces closely enough to understand what actually prompted someone to choose Coca-Cola.
That helps explain the emphasis on creators. Influencers are increasingly functioning as media channels, creative partners and sales drivers at the same time. Retail media adds another layer by placing advertising much closer to the point of purchase. Coca-Cola wants an agency capable of bringing those environments together rather than treating them as separate disciplines.
The Agency Brief Is Getting Bigger
Integration was already central to Coca-Cola’s previous agency transformation. When WPP became its global marketing network partner, the holding company created Open X, a dedicated model that brought together talent from different parts of the network. Arroyo says Coca-Cola has seen strong progress during that relationship, but the next stage requires even tighter links between marketing activity and commercial outcomes.
That reflects a broader change in what large advertisers expect from agencies. Media buying alone is no longer enough. Brands increasingly want partners that understand creator ecosystems, commerce platforms, data, live experiences, retail environments and measurement, while still being able to build a recognizable brand over time.
The tension is obvious. Performance marketing can show immediate results, while long-term brand building is harder to attribute to an individual sale. Coca-Cola’s approach suggests the two are being pushed closer together. Brand equity still matters, but the company wants to see how that equity eventually changes behavior.
What Coca-Cola Wants Next
For agencies, the message is fairly clear. Producing work that earns attention is only one part of the job. The next partner will also need to understand where that attention goes next: into creator communities, stores, live experiences, commerce platforms and ultimately transactions.
That does not make creativity less important. It raises the burden on it. A memorable campaign now has to coexist with a system capable of connecting cultural relevance to measurable demand.
Coca-Cola has spent more than a century becoming one of the most loved brands on the planet. Its current marketing philosophy suggests that love, by itself, has become a surprisingly low bar.
What matters is what people do next.
