Coca-Cola has axed the global CMO role just 18 months after Marcos de Quinto took the top spot and repositioned the global marketing strategy of the soft drinks giant.
De Quinto was named CMO in January 2015, replacing Joseph Tripodi who had held the role for seven years. He will now retire from Coke after almost 35 years with the company.
As part of the new structure, Coke has also created a chief innovation officer role that will be filled by Robert Long, the vice president of research and development.
It's not clear if the restructure will have any knock-on effects to Coke's local regional structure. There has been a trend of CMO roles being axed locally with Unilever and Vodafone both doing away with the function in the first quarter of the year.
After taking on the CMO role, De Quinto set about an overhaul of the brand, its marketing, business strategy, packaging and communications. The Taste the Feeling strategy was described as the biggest wholesale change to Coke's marketing in its 130 year history. It's understood that the campaign and the 'one brand' strategy will remain in place.
Coke's new CEO James Quincey, who is the current chief operating officer, will take over the reins of the company on 1 May from Muhtar Kent. The decision to axe the global CMO role is part of a leadership restructure that sees the creation of chief growth officer role which heads up a new division which combines marketing, customer and commercial leadership strategy.
Francisco Crespo, currently president of Coca-cola’s Mexican business, will become chief growth officer.
In a statement Quincey says: “Today’s organizational announcement is another building block in our company’s transformational journey. We are moving quickly to structure our organisation for faster growth and to ensure we can respond to the fast-changing needs of our consumers, customers, system and associates around the world.
"Each of the leaders named today is highly capable and understands our clear mandate for change, and I look forward to partnering with them as we transform our business for the future."
De Quinto masterminded Taste the Feeling and brought Coke's marketing back to the fundamentals of the product, moving away from the more politically-charged, grand ideas it had been executing in recent years, such as tackling world peace, under the Open Happiness tagline.
At the time he said: “More than ever, we recognise people want their Coca-Cola in different ways, but whichever one they want, they want a Coca-Cola brand with great taste and uplifting refreshment. Through the ‘One Brand’ strategy we will move away from multiple brand campaigns, to one single iconic brand campaign that celebrates both the product and the brand.”
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