Coca-Cola is a marketing powerhouse with campaigns that span the globe. Their content is highly seasonal and regionally tailored, but it’s all guided by a central strategic calendar . Here’s how Coca-Cola leverages editorial calendars: - Yearly Campaign Roadmap: Coca-Cola plans major campaigns well in advance (think: summer promotions, holiday season campaigns, World Cup tie-ins). They have a high-level editorial calendar that marks out these campaigns and allocates content themes for each. - Localized Calendars Under a Global Framework: While there’s a global calendar providing broad themes (like a global “Share a Coke” summer campaign), regional marketing teams maintain their own content calendars to execute locally.
The global calendar ensures that at any given time, there’s a cohesive message worldwide, while local calendars allow flexibility (e.g., a Diwali-themed content week in India, Carnival in Brazil, etc.) within that framework. - Integrated Media Planning: Coca-Cola’s editorial calendar isn’t just for social or blog content; it syncs with ad campaigns, sponsorships, and PR events. For example, when Coca-Cola sponsored a major sporting event, their calendar included pre-event build-up content (athlete stories, throwback posts to previous events), real-time content during the event, and follow-up engagement (user-generated content highlights, thank-you messages) – all timed with precision.
- Real-Time Marketing Flexibility: Their calendars deliberately balance planned evergreen content (like Coca-Cola’s feel-good storytelling videos which can be scheduled anytime) with slots for real-time marketing. A famous example was the “Share a Coke” campaign , where they encouraged user-generated content of people sharing Cokes with names on them. The campaign launch and conclusion were scheduled, but the team remained agile to spotlight the best user submissions in real-time, fitting them into the content schedule on the fly. Lesson from Coca-Cola: If your brand operates in multiple markets or on a large scale, maintain a layered editorial calendar system – one that sets the global narrative and others that adapt it locally.
And always leave room to capitalize on real-time opportunities within the planned structure.