My conversations with Sergio Zyman, CMO of Coca-Cola

“Marketing is about selling more stuff to more people more often for more money more efficiently. That's what marketing is.” - Sergio Zyman

This week marks a small milestone: The 10th episode of "A History of Marketing." So I'm doing something special: my first two-part interview.

Sergio Zyman, Part 1: “The First Chief Marketing Officer”

Sergio Zyman, Part 2: New Coke and "The End of Marketing as We Know It"

I'm joined by Sergio Zyman, a true marketing iconoclast. He has too many stories and too much personality to fit into just one episode.

Wikipedia describes Zyman as being “best known as the marketer behind the failed launch of New Coke." Zyman rarely gives interviews, and the few that are available tend to focus on the New Coke saga.

But New Coke is only a brief, and frankly misleading, snapshot of Zyman’s career full of marketing milestones. He went on to become Coca-Cola's first Chief Marketing Officer. And (according to Zyman) the first CMO in history – of any company, anywhere.

The first conversation with Zyman explores his unlikely journey from Mexico City to the C-Suite of the Fortune 100, with stops at Procter & Gamble, McCann Erickson, assignments in Japan (working on Nescafe and General Motors), and even becoming president of Pepsi in Brazil by age 30.

Part 2 takes us even deeper into one of marketing's most analyzed and debated moments: New Coke.

n the spring of 1985, Coca-Cola made an unprecedented marketing decision: they replaced the original Coke with 'New Coke.'

But after 77 days of widespread consumer backlash, the iconic 'Classic' Coke was back, marking one of the most dramatic marketing U-turns in history.

Hear the inside story of New Coke in part 2 of my interview with Sergio Zyman, who was the first CMO of Coca-Cola and the marketing executive on the front lines of the Cola Wars.

New Coke continues to be analyzed and debated. Sergio Zyman shares how resistance to changing Coca-Cola's iconic (but underperforming) ads led to the fateful decision to change the product itself.

He also shares some of the flaws in the research. The New Coke outperformed Pepsi (and the old Coke) in blind taste tests, but Coca-Cola didn’t accurately measure impact purchase intent of those tested.

As always, Sergio Zyman is entertaining, insightful, and full of bold marketing insights.