Single, charismatic and openly gay, the 41-year-old admits that, compared with his previous home in London, Georgia’s capital is somewhat tamer - or, as he puts it, “the dullest city in the world”.
What keeps him there is a job he adores, and most marketers would kill for: vice-president for global advertising and creative excellence at Coca-Cola. His arrival in that role nearly two years ago has coincided with a creative renaissance at Coke, chiefly on the back of its global ‘Happiness factory’ campaign. And - as he told Media 360 delegates in Macau recently - there is plenty more to come.
What keeps him there is a job he adores, and most marketers would kill for: vice-president for global advertising and creative excellence at Coca-Cola. His arrival in that role nearly two years ago has coincided with a creative renaissance at Coke, chiefly on the back of its global ‘Happiness factory’ campaign. And - as he told Media 360 delegates in Macau recently - there is plenty more to come.
The Englishman - his speech is still peppered with elongated vowels from his childhood in Leeds - is an agency man by background. He rose to MD at TBWA\London before leaving to go to Harvard Business School in 2005. After a stint at London hotshop Mother, he was poached by Coke in January last year to oversee the beverage giant’s key global brands.
Mildenhall’s enthusiasm for his brand is palpable - and, he insists, predates his role there. “I went clubbing 20 years ago in little t-shirts with the Coke logo on them. Something about being stubbornly positive reflected some of my values. Then I got my hands on the brands and I really fell in love with them. They are the closest thing I’ll ever have to family.”
This visit to Asia comes amid Coke’s attempts to buy Chinese juice maker Huiyuan. Asia is a key priority for Coke, and although Mildenhall would not inherit the Huiyuan brands in the event of a takeover (they would be left to local teams), there is plenty in the region to keep him busy.
His role globally is “part-coach, part collaborator” for local teams, but Mildenhall’s role in Asia is slightly different. “I come here to learn, not to teach,” he says, pointing in particular to the way digital channels are evolving. “Asia is helping to build our capabilities in terms of social networking and digital communications. There are opportunities in terms of media innovation that we need to fill with innovative content. The way technology is developing in Asia is definitely something we can export.”
Asia has also been a significant market for ‘Happiness factory’, with Thailand becoming the first market outside the US to roll out the campaign. That activity - which depicts a fantasy world of strange creatures hidden inside every Coke vending machine - began life as a TV ad but has since developed into something much bigger. Coke is working with Wieden & Kennedy and branded content agency Starlight Runner to take the idea behind the campaign into different media formats. Talks are underway for a ‘Happiness factory’ film and a comic is also in the works. This is an approach Mildenhall describes (unusually inelegantly) as “transmedia storytelling”. Rather than piggybacking on existing properties, he is keen to build Coke’s “brand mythology” through narrative, characters and stories. Developing these into their own media properties can generate new revenue streams, turning marketing activity from a cost into a contributor - a prospect that is “exciting our financial department” but, from a rights-holding perspective, is “terrifying our legal people”.
Some of his plans have Asia written all over them. Coca-Cola is planning to turn ‘Happiness factory’ into a game. While Mildenhall will not comment on specifics, he drops a hint when he says Coke’s “universal values” mean “I would want millions of people to play it simultaneously”. In a region where MMORPGs (massively multiplayer online role-play games) are engrained into youth culture, the prospect of a Coke-branded virtual world is compelling.
Coke’s creative ambition makes it a much-desired client in the agency world. But Mildenhall, who says he respects “about 10 agencies in the world”, admits he can be a harsh taskmaster. The client has been canny in recruiting a team of former agency men to help direct its marketing; as a result, Coke’s agencies know they can’t get away with anything. “We ask the questions other clients wouldn’t. Agencies need to be much more agile and acute in conversations.”
And if an agency falls short of the mark, the charm can quickly disappear. “The worst thing an agency can do is present mediocre work,” he says. “We have very short conversations if they do that”
Jonathan Mildenhall’s CV
2007 Vice-president for global advertising and creative excellence, Coca-Cola
2005 Strategy director, Mother
2005 Harvard Business School, Advanced Management Programme
1990 Various agency roles, rising to managing director, TBWA\London
