By Seb Joseph • June 5, 2026 •
One of Coca-Cola’s core focuses these days is data — specifically how it matches its own data against what its partners hold.
John Murphy, the advertiser’s president and CFO, made the point at the DBAccess Global Consumer Conference on Thursday.
He added: “Today, one of our core areas, how do we take the, let’s say, first-party data that we own — it’s proprietary, it’s ours — and how do we marry that with the customer data that these proprietors who are bottlers, given the amount of engagement they have with millions of customers every day. Or how do we work with some of our partners, whether it’s in the U.S. with Publicis or WPP in other parts of the world, to bring that together and then to create a sort of a new intelligence.”
While it’s hardly a fresh observation, it is a timely one. Coca-Cola is about to kick off a global agency review covering media, data and technology, triggering a tussle between Publicis Groupe and WPP, as Ad Age first reported. It will exclude North America, where the advertiser already works with Publicis as well as Japen and Korea where it works with Dentsu, the company said in an emailed statement. Moreover, it will not include global creative and PR disciplines, which will remain with WPP.
