Episode 232 / Rebecca McCowan / The Coca-Cola Company / Design Lead
The Importance of Slow Design for Creative Effectiveness
As the Design Lead at The Coca-Cola Company, Rebecca McCowan looks after the visual identity and branding for their entire portfolio across Europe. Through her years of experience solving business problems with design, she’s discovered why slow design can be a key to creative effectiveness in the long term.
Just like fast food and fast fashion, marketing suffers from “fast design," according to Rebecca. There’s a recurring pressure to do things very quickly and to start from scratch - two elements that prevent a brand from being as efficient and effective over the long term as it could be.
Rebecca thinks the answer is slow design - which is why this is her Shiny New Object. Instead of doing rebrand after rebrand and continuing to reinvent, more brands should look to do it once and do it well.
The method looks easy: take a step back, think about where you want your brand to be in 2 to 5 years’ time, even in 10 years’ time, and start working on that today. From a design standpoint, this means building the brand slowly, without jumping into new and exciting campaigns and trends, and staying consistent.
An interesting example of how this works well is the “Coca-Cola Christmas.” After all, so much of the aesthetic of Western Christmas has been defined by Coca-Cola ads. However, Rebecca shared how the look of Santa Claus has changed over the years, among other things, and how going back to the “original” was more difficult and counterintuitive than you’d think.
Find out more about the secrets of Coca-Cola Christmas ads and hear Rebecca’s top marketing tips in the full episode.
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Transcript
The following gives you a good idea of what was said, but it’s not 100% accurate.
Rebecca McCowan 0:00
We're not brave enough to have those moments of mystery and intrigue we just want it all out there front and center all the time
Tom Ollerton 0:15
This holiday season marketers are facing their biggest decisions at a point of maximum pressure, delivery fatigue and budget crunch are real and it's leading to complacency around creative effectiveness in digital marketing and that could make or break campaigns. So what can you do about it? Well, you should read the automated creative white paper called compounding creative and urgent q4 Wake up call. So you can get this on this bitly link which is: Bit.ly/Q4XMAS2023. Enjoy.
Hello, and welcome to the shiny new object podcast. My name is Tom Ollerton. I'm the founder of automated creative, the creative effectiveness ad tech platform. And every week I have the pleasure and the privilege of interviewing our industry's leaders about their vision for the future of that industry. And this week is no different. I'm on a call with Rebecca McCowan, who is design lead for Europe at the Coca Cola company. So Rebecca, for anyone who doesn't know who you are and what you do, could you give the audience a bit of background?
Rebecca McCowan 1:29
Yeah, first of all, thank you, Tom. Thanks for having me. And hello, everyone. I'm Rebecca McCowan. And as Tom said, I'm the design lead for Coca Cola for Europe. And basically my very small but mighty team, we are looking after all the visual identity and branding for the entire Coca Cola portfolio across Europe. So that includes things you guys all know like Coke, Fanta, sprites, and lots of things you might not know like, juices, dairies, waters, et cetera, et cetera. So the list goes on. So yeah...
Tom Ollerton 2:07
I'm assuming you didn't arrive in that job. It's your first gig out of school. What did you do in between then and now?
Rebecca McCowan 2:14
In between then, so funny enough, I always set out to be a lawyer. And then I found I couldn't quite bring myself to take the entrance exams to law school. And there is this nagging feeling that I needed to do something more creative. So to make a very long story short, I ended up at design school in Atlanta. And then from there, I moved to work at a at an agency in Chicago. And about seven months later, I was laid off with the entire Junior design department. And I felt a little ballsy and opened my own little thing with a fellow laid off designer. And we did that for about three years. And then ultimately, I found myself in a position where I couldn't pay my rent. So I went and got a job. And I was a designer at a restaurant and entertainment company. And I was there for about three or four years. And then it was it was a really nasty snowstorm where there was snow up to my shoulders, and I couldn't get and I still had to go to work. I it was hard to get to work, I couldn't get to work, but I still had to go to work. And I was like this, this is not for me. So I convinced my husband to move to a warmer climate. And we ended up back in Atlanta, and I was working for Coca Cola. And from there then we came to Austria. Goodness, that was long.
Tom Ollerton 3:46
It's a shame we originally planned to do this podcast at your place, I think I was gonna get the train from Budapest and there's gonna be this like dreamy, cool, trans European thing didn't happen. What do you know, the Zoom call, but there you go. There you go. Maybe next time. So first question, what have you become better at saying no to in your career?
Rebecca McCowan 4:07
So I have become better at saying no to bad briefs. Or just challenging the briefs that I get that come across my desk. I think that too many people in in marketing and in the world where I work, think that design exists just to make things pretty. And I do think that aesthetics are very important because as humans, we love beautiful things. But at the core design is really about solving problems. So I'll give you an example we get I get a lot of briefs where it's like, oh, we need a new look and feel because we need to increase transactions. And it's like, Okay, well that's a business problem that's not in here. it'll be a design problem. And so then we have to dig a little deeper and say we'll, why do we need to increase transactions? And it's oh, well, you know, people aren't buying our product as often as they used to, well, why aren't they buying our product as often? Oh, well, the price went up. Okay, now we're getting somewhere. So if the price went up, then either you can go solve that with the commercial supply chain people. Or we can do some assumptions and think that maybe people don't think that they're getting their value for their money when they're buying our product, because it's more expensive now. And so maybe this could turn into a design problem, which is, we need to elevate the look and feel so that the look of it is matching the price. And then people will feel better about paying a bit more for it. So that is a very, like black and white example. They are never that. That easy to solve. But essentially, we get a lot of weird briefs that, that you have to dig a lot or that don't really make sense, because it's a business problem and not a design problem.
Tom Ollerton 6:16
So if someone's writing you a brief, how would you like them to know that they are ready to write your brief? Because I think what you're describing is someone expressing that they have a problem, as opposed to having written you a brief.
Rebecca McCowan 6:31
Yeah, well, I think that that is a really fabulous question. Because I think a lot of what happens is, we just kind of get a brief in an email, Hey, here's a brief for you, instead of bringing design in very early, and having that discussion of, okay, these are the challenges that this brand is facing, design people and it doesn't just have to be design people in the room, you know, human insights, digital people, everybody in the room together, kind of trying to tackle the problem together. And eventually you'll, you'll find that little nugget where design can play a role. But again, a lot of briefs that come to us are not inherently, there's not a problem with the design. But there's a problem with the business. And the assumption is that design needs to fix it, or design can fix it. And ultimately, you just have to, like, keep digging until you understand what the problem is for the person that's interacting with it. Like if you think about everything around you, it's all been designed at some point, I'm like, I'm, I'm looking at my very cluttered desk at the moment. And, you know, I've got, I've got some headphones, well, those were designed because people wanted to be able to listen to music or listen to something while they're walking around, or I have a plant on my desk. And at some point, someone designed this beautiful little pot so that I could bring the outside world in and have a little bit of nature on my desk. So there's a lot of aesthetics in that. But at the core, you're designing for reason for a problem.
Tom Ollerton 7:04
So what are the things that we've done as a business? And I'd love to get your view on it, you might think it's absolute nonsense. But when I worked at an agency, I went through the process of taking briefs for a pitch, so the company agency go "so and so we're looking for a social media agency, here's the brief, you know, the RFP for the proposal," and then we do it, and then we lose it. And then afterwards, you say, "Well, you know, what you didn't do was like ABC, you didn't talk about ESG, whatever it was". And we were like, "well, you didn't put that in the brief, man. So like, how can we possibly respond to it?" Oh, because your best mates were the person that wanted, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So what when when we set up automated creative, we developed this thing called a collaborative brief, right? So our clients don't write briefs for us, what we do is have a conversation with them. And they go, Well, what are you trying to do in the next quarter? What we're trying to do is sell this thing or raise awareness of x or get people to consider this thing? And then why who's the target audience? How you want to do that? What assets do you have? What's the media budget, like a ton of questions, and they just talk to us and we record it all, and then we write it down in a brief and instead of asking, is this your brief? Not, they'll get no, no, actually, it's more about this, or actually, here's this bit of data that will help so we collaborate from day one. And so there's no them sending me a brief and then me trying to translate that into automated creative language. It's just like, that's what you want to do, what you're trying to achieve what you want to get to, and I play that back, but do you think that would help or is that just a weird thing that we do?
Rebecca McCowan 9:42
No, I think that's an amazing thing that you do. And I think that collaboration is key. Um, And, you know, this is kind of a separate topic. But I think that our industry is very good at working in silos and, you know, everybody comes up with an idea. And off, they run and do it. And nobody's really thinking about things together. It's, it's interesting I was I was having a chat with a friend of mine at an agency the other day, and we were talking about this idea of challenging briefs. And they were saying like, well, Rebecca, because you are internal, you have more of a voice and more of a say, to challenge a brief, whereas the agency doesn't always feel so comfortable to challenge a brief. So I love what you guys are doing with this whole kind of collaboration from the very beginning. Because I do think that sometimes, briefs just kind of get lobbed over the fence to the agency, and then they have to make sense of it. But a big part of my job is getting that original brief, figuring out how design can play a role, and what that role is, and then taking that to the design agency. So I'm like the middleman between the marketing brief and the design agency.
Tom Ollerton 11:23
This episode of the shiny new object podcast is brought to you in partnership with MAD//Fest whether it's live in London or streamed online to the global marketing community, you can always expect the distinctive and daring blend of fast paced content startup innovation pitches and unconventional entertainment from MAD//fest events, you'll find me causing trouble on stage recording live versions of this podcast and sharing a beer with the nicest and most influential people in marketing, check it out at www.madfestlondon.com.
So we're now going to move on to your top marketing tip. So don't have many design people on the show. So I'm fascinated what is what is your top marketing tip, what is the thing that you find yourself saying to your teams, or colleagues most often?
Rebecca McCowan 12:18
I think that, in in my world, we tend to market to, and this is gonna sound maybe rude, but we tend to market to the lowest common denominator. And we feel like if we don't spell it out, perfectly clear that people aren't going to get it. And so we, we lose that sense of intrigue and wonder. And that sense of surprise and delight. And I think it's really important to let people engage with our brands in a way that lets them learn along the way and not like shouting at them from the very beginning. And I'll give you two examples. Like you, you might use FedEx to send your packages. And for years and years, you might just appreciate that FedEx gets your things from point A to point B. And then one day, you might notice that adorable little arrow between the E and the x. And suddenly, it's just a whole different experience. It brings a little smile to your, we say a little smile to your eye, but I think it just, you don't have to notice it in the beginning. But then once you do you realize it's just a clever, lovely little touch. I'm the same I would say for innocent juice drinks. So again, you can buy an innocent juice, you can drink it, then you can recycle it because that's what you're supposed to do. And you may never notice anything else and you've had a lovely juice experience. But if you happen to turn the bottle and you look on the back of pack, you'll see just these funny little stories you'll see the the phone number for their banana hotline and I can tell you, I've seen the banana phone it exists. And it's just this lovely little interaction that if you as a consumer want to take the time, there's more to see and learn. But if you don't, that's okay. Whereas I feel like in my world, we're not brave enough to have those moments of mystery and intrigue we just want it all out there front and center all the time.
Tom Ollerton 14:43
That is wonderful to hear. I'm just looking at the FedEx logo, never had... don't use Fedex, maybe once in my life if ever so maybe I'm not the guy for that but that's fantastic. I tell you who do that really brilliantly is Oatly. We had Michael Lee, who's one of the creative directors there and if you ever look on the side of a pack of Oatly, there's just this like continual stream of BS, which is just them being cheeky and funny and irreverent. And it's like I don't know if you've experienced this but what used to be Virgin Trains had this sign in the bathroom on the train that said, Don't flush anything down the toilet, including your hopes and dreams, your ex girlfriend's jumper and like, that was funny once man 10 years ago, but like, it's even like, they don't have the trains anymore, a different company owns the trains, and it's still there. Oh, my God, like, but whereas Oatly constantly refresh the joke? Music on it and that musics about their CEO something ridiculous. And I do. It's really nice to hear that because I definitely live in the world of like, get the value proposition right, get the right visual, deliver the outcome that you want. But what you're talking about is almost like a meta level of care that deepens the relationship with a brand.
Rebecca McCowan 15:59
Yeah, exactly. And it's funny because I'm, like, I'm working on a project now. And it's, it's for a thing that's happening next summer. And basically, we're working with the creative team. And they're doing more of the kind of advertising campaigning stuff. And design is a bit more about the, the branding and the foundation. And, you know, we're proposing these, like, out of home billboards and posters and things that are that are very simple, that just have like one little headline, and it makes you stop and think, whereas we're getting so much pushback that, no, we have to show the occasion and the call to action and the QR code, and we have to show what packs we're talking about. And it's like when you put these two things side by side, it's like one is so cluttered, like, I wouldn't even look at it, and the other one makes me stop and smile. And it just, it's really hard. In a world of you know, call to actions and QR codes and lalalalala to get people to just stop and let people interact with the brand in their own way.
Tom Ollerton 17:16
A lot of the work we do is performance advertising. So this is like a different place for me to be discussed. Of course, get a QR code on it, get the plaque on it. On those loopy arrows say turn around and head back to say no, of course.
Right, so we are going to move on now to your shiny new object, which is slow design. I don't know what that is, what is... explain slow design to me and I will try and have a sensible conversation with you.
Rebecca McCowan 17:52
You're gonna get it it's quite simple, um, and the name was born from so I, a colleague of mine, she and I came up with this, her name is Jessica Philby. And she's amazing. And we were talking about this one day about the idea of like slow food. And the opposite of fast fashion is slow fashion. And we were talking about how in our worlds, everything is done very quickly. And we're almost always starting from scratch. So instead of doing a rebranding once and doing it well and taking the time to do it, we'll do it four times and badly and keep needing to reinvent. And so it's just this thought of like, let's take a step back, let's, let's think about where we want the brand to be in two years time, five years time, 10 years time, and start working towards that. But unfortunately, places like Coca Cola and a lot of these big fmcgs We're working on a yearly cycle. So every year, we're redoing things that we did the previous year. I'll give you an example like Christmas. I don't know if you know this, but Christmas happens every single year. It does. And every single year we start from scratch of okay, what are we going to do this year for Coke Christmas, instead of saying, Okay, this is the world that Coke Christmas should look and feel like and every year we're going to build on that. And we're going to bring instead of starting from scratch, we're going to use 80% of it and the other 20% is the new and interesting for this year. Um, and it's funny because I've talked to a lot other people within Coke about this because it does bother me how much we start from scratch. And, and they're always like, Yeah, but you know, consumers need something new the bottlers need something new. Like, we like shiny and we like new. And I'm like, Yeah, we do like shiny and we like new like that. Humans that's that's what we like. But when you think about Christmas, and you think about, you know, putting up your Christmas tree and getting out your ornaments. Do you? Do you want that experience to be different every single year? Or is there something kind of lovely about the nostalgia of bringing out the same ornaments just for this short period of time? And loving it for what it is and not needing to reinvent it every single year?
Tom Ollerton 20:52
Well, I'm putting on Christmas though, because I think Christmas is is the month that taste of God, right? Just like a Christmas tree is literally the most ugly thing in the universe but it looks amazing. Like wrapping paper, Santa Claus. It's just the music. It's the worst music. I can tell you why it's the worst music because we don't listen to it for the rest of the year. I can tell you why it's the worst. Because we don't eat that food, the rest of the mulled wine is because worst way to drink wine. And why do I know that? Because no one drinks if outside of Christmas. It's exactly. The awful things make you feel great. Because there are there are associations around that.
Rebecca McCowan 21:29
You have not been to a Christmas market in Vienna, and had the mulled wine here.
Tom Ollerton 21:34
So um, do you drink it in June? No, you don't like, you forget it. It's just this an excuse to drink alcohol earlier in the day, which I'm totally on board but we're having a meeting at cokes office. It's 11am mulled wine. It's Christmas.
Rebecca McCowan 21:53
Everybody loves it. Um, but on the same note, would you drink like a pina colada at Christmas time?
Tom Ollerton 21:59
I'm from the north of England. I'll drink anything. Yeah. fairpoint. Anyway, yes. That's a powerful argument, the company, it surprises me because I always see Coke as the quintessential Christmas brand. That it that's the trucks and the song and big Happy Santa Claus smiling and winking at you like, that feels like it's there every year. But clearly, it's not. It needs to be reinvented apparently. But you're in a sort of roster of like three or four brands, I guess that have that kind of completely 100% awareness and consideration and all that stuff that that you can do the same thing over and over again, or have I been missing some significant campaigns?
Rebecca McCowan 22:40
You know, so I mean, to that point, you are right. I mean, every year we do have Santa, we do have the truck. I don't know if the song stays the same, I don't know. But it's interesting how sometimes the Santa changes a little bit. And like this past year, we were working on it. And we have one of the cool things about coke and especially when I was living in Atlanta and working for global design is we had the Coca Cola archives, right there to be able to go explore and check out. And so a lot of times from a design standpoint, again, our goal is to build the brands very slowly and not not jump on to these kinds of exciting campaigns. But keep the consistent brand. And so we went and found the original Santa that the artist had had painted and so we're like, let's go back to the Santa this is our original Santa. This is basically when Santa really came came into his own. I mean, it's pretty much like the Santa we know and love is the Coca-Cola version of Santa. And so we've had lots of Santas over the years, but our push is always let's go back to the original Santa that that's our dude. And it's funny because this past year we were making a push to like be modern yet still true to our heritage. And some of the other teams were just not buying it and they wanted like these random like newfangled Santas and we were like but no, that's not the coke Santa like we have to be the coke Santa. So it is kind of this idea of like staying true to who you are and having moments where where you can flex a bit and feel more modern. Did that make sense? I don't know
Tom Ollerton 24:52
It made a lot of sense. And I feel like we could discuss this all day but we can't, we're at time. So Rebecca if someone wanted to get in touch with you Talk about what's the right kind of Santa's slow design or any of the things we talked about today? Where would you like them to get in contact with you? And what kind of message gets you to actually reply?
Rebecca McCowan 25:11
So um, they can absolutely find me on LinkedIn, Rebecca McCowan, that's probably the best way to track me down. And what type of message would get me to reply? I think something that feels authentic, that feels like you've spent a minute to write it, and it wasn't written by AI. And it wasn't written for a mass audience that you've now copied and pasted back to me, you know, nothing wrong with that little time
Tom Ollerton 25:47
Well, look, that was a an unusual conversation for this podcast. And thank you for giving me a completely different perspective on our industry.
Rebecca McCowan 25:53
Well, thank you. Thank you for having me.
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