by Irma Mutuc
MANILA – In an interview with Stephan Czypionka, VP for Marketing of Coca-Cola Philippines, adobo was informed that they recently concluded a pitch, which resulted in some brand reassignments, “We pitched Wilkins, the leading water brand in the Philippines. We pitched Eight o’clock, and Minute Maid. Campaigns & Grey will take on Wilkins. Campaigns & Grey will handle minute Maid and Eight o’clock in parts but David (an Ogilvy creative spin-off) from Argentina will take Eight o’clock. We have a very complex business brief and we wanted to get out of the usual. We have strong agencies but we needed to have a fresh take on things.”
Czypionka was happy to report that Coke will still be handled by its present agency, “Coke stays with McCann Erickson, Phils. They’re a winning team. Sprite and Royal are with them, too, but at the moment we’re using a lot of global material for Royal.”
When adobo probed about the reason for the changes, Czypionka, who’s only been in the country for seven months, shared, “What we bring to the table are big brands and these are fun brands to work with. Today competition is very strong so what I would expect from our agency landscape is to be the best team. I need a family of agencies that is working with us and growing with us.”
A day before the adobo interview, Czypionka led what their team called an agency kick-off, “We needed to shape and shake the organization and the agencies that work with us. We had to bring all the agencies at the same page. I presented to them where we want to go. We want to transform this business. There are not many markets that offer a similar opportunity to grow like the Philippines. It’s not only Coke that we want to grow, we want the opportunity to grow for all our brands and we want to grow for them (our agencies), because if we double our business, we will most probably double our advertising budgets.”
Coca-Cola Philippines operates eighteen brands in seven categories. Czypionka is expected to lead the innovation and execution of marketing strategies across the entire portfolio of the company. His objective is to drive sustainable growth for the company’s core sparkling beverage brands and accelerate Coca-Cola’s still beverage business. He says, “I’m excited about the Philippines. It’s one of our best markets. When I landed here, there was good energy. The country is great. Filipinos are very friendly, hospitable people and they like food. That is important for me.”
Before moving to the Philippines, Czypionka lead the first country worldwide launch of Coca-Cola Life in Argentina where he served as Marketing Director of Coca-Cola for Argentina, Paraguay, and Uruguay. He successfully managed a portfolio of twenty-five sparkling and still beverage brands for six bottler operations in the South Latin Business of Coca-Cola.
