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Coca-Cola, the original TV alpha advertiser, has flipped to digital first, now spending 60 per cent of its circa $4bn media budget on digital. But its digital transformation runs much deeper than media – and it appears to be paying off big time. Revenue in 2023 was up 6.39 per cent and CFO and President John Murphy said its marketing reorganisation is boosting agility and productivity, with marketing “not a cost, but an investment”. CEO James Quincey said its in-house Studio X, delivered by WPP with output underpinned by Hogarth, is powering, “bringing it all together,” per Quincey, with the firm balancing digital and massive experiential events to put cans in hands, build brand and scoop up first party data along the way. It’s now also using AI to help reformulate product. So far it seems to be working.

“I didn’t know a lot about B2B – I’m fully aware of that. I didn’t know anything about the infrastructure industry,” says Steffen Daleng, ex-Booktopia marketing chief turned CMO of private equity backed Australian B2B infrastructure company Jaybro. But making a cross-category leap has not slowed him down. Tasked with transforming the digital and marketing capabilities of a complex portfolio of brands and businesses as Jaybro works towards an IPO, Daleng has promptly tabled productivity wins and soothed staff heebie-jeebies as he rewires marketing and digital. He hasn’t been shy in kicking off a swathe of transformation programs, from a martech and ecommerce overhaul to a marketing and digital team restructure, brand auditing, getting a handle on out-of-hand merchandising and extending the customer lens. But within all of that – and amid a remit to centralise – its long-term agency partners appear safe: “Either you build the best in the industry; or you accept when something else is better.”

Accenture Song boss Mark Green said the deal for the 80-staffer martech consultancy The Lumery is about adding firepower, not plugging gaps as demand for end-to-end service capability soars – and the top end of town consolidates CIO, CTO and CMO remits under all-powerful chief customer officers. While some question whether any holdco or consulting firm is truly delivering integrated brand, strategy, tech, CX and data analytics, Green insists accenture Song is walking the talk – and delivering “high double digit” growth as a “standout” performer within the broader Accenture group. Green and the Lumery co-founder and CEO Raj Kumar see that boom accelerating as brands get serious about slicing tech stacks and services that are underperforming and asking much pointier questions both internally and externally in a bid to drive growth through customer experience.