Coca-Cola Marketing Director Kate Santore: 'Authenticity is not a strategy, it's mandatory'

Kate Santore is not afraid to stand out.

You can see this in her work as director of marketing and innovation at Coca-Cola, but also in how she’s navigated her professional life as a whole.

Like that time when she was up for a role at Federated Media and thought showcasing her creativity could seal the deal. So she bought a pizza, took out a slice and had it delivered to the Federated offices. When it arrived, they took note of what was written inside the box: “I’m the piece of the pie FM is missing.” It made an impression. She got the job, and 13 years later, her boss still has the picture.???

Networking was also a core part of how she approached new opportunities.

“I went into meeting anyone who would be willing to have coffee with me with the ask of ‘Is there one more person you could introduce me to who you think could use help from what I could bring?’” she says.

How she landed her next gig was another case of counting herself in.?

In 2012, she saw a presentation from Coke Global VP Jonathan Mildenhall and was in awe.?

“I want to work with this guy,” she thought, “like I will sweep the floors.”

While trying to find ways in at Coke, she encountered plenty of naysayers: Her experience at an agency was “too limited.” She worked at a startup “no one had ever heard of.” She wasn’t Coke material.?

So she stopped applying through the company’s job portal and took a more direct route, emailing Mildenhall three bullets on how she could add value to Coke’s work and asked if he could introduce her to anyone at Coke who might need someone with her skillset.?

Mildenhall passed the email on to his number two who took a call with her. Mildenhall’s deputy happened to have an open role on his digital team and gave her a shot at an interview.

Santore’s since spent almost a decade at the iconic beverage maker working on Coca-Cola, Diet Coke, Smart Water and more. She’s overseen product launches, mega collaborations and Super Bowl and Olympics activations.

She points to the uniqueness of marketing a quintessential brand like Coke.?

“You have to believe in the specialness of it, that you're not constantly new and improving it,” she says.?

But in an increasingly noisy world, your work must stand out.?

Santore says she often wonders, “How do you keep yourself in pop culture in a way that you're embedded in the fabric of it versus just dancing around the outsides?”

Below, she shares more of her story.

1. What has had the most impact on your perspective as a marketer?

I’d say getting to work for two industry giants, Jonathan Mildenhall and Wendy Clark at The Coca-Cola Company.?

Jonathan is one of those rare leaders who was willing to take a chance on someone who didn’t have a traditional marketing background and I am forever grateful he took a chance on me. He taught me that great marketing isn’t just about selling products; it's about earning the hearts and minds of people. Jonathan instilled in me an unrelenting belief in the power of creativity.

Wendy showed me that the best leaders lead with kindness, presence and support. She once said to me, “if you are not failing, you're not innovating.” That changed my perspective on failure and switched the narrative in my mind from “it’s okay if you fail” to “you’re expected to fail.” Giving myself and my team the space to fail, learn and rework has made me a braver marketer.??

2. What’s changed the most about your job as a marketer over the course of your career?

I’ve had the opportunity to sit in a lot of different positions as a marketer, over my career to date. I’ve spent time marketing in B2B and B2C categories, developing branding for iconic global brands as well as new, local brands. I’ve sat client-side, agency-side and publisher-side. Regardless of how much evolution has happened or numerous new places to tell your stories that arise, a few core tenets remain constant such as:

• Every brand must have a purpose and be clear on what it is.
• Your brand’s purpose needs to tie back to how it benefits humanity.
• Consumers must be at the center of your thinking.
• Authenticity is not a strategy. It's mandatory.
• Words without action are just noise.

?3. What is the hardest part of a marketer's job today?

There’s this saying…. “You’ll never get fired for buying IBM.” Most recently, I’ve heard it’s evolved to “Nobody got fired for buying Outlook.” It’s easy to make the safe choice and go with what you know will be a sturdy solution. It’s hard to have the courage to think differently, to choose the un-proven, to be willing to “go there.” And after 2020, living with such uncertainty, it's harder than ever to muster the courage and conviction to push for better and harder still to convince others to get uncomfortable and come along with you. But no one ever moved forward by standing still. So even though it's hard, I’ll continue to keep pushing forward.

4. Tell us about the marketing campaign you're most proud of working on in your career?

I firmly believe advancing business isn’t solely about products or revenue. It’s about bringing everyone behind the business with you. I’m most proud of some of the work I’ve been able to do inside Coca-Cola.?

Last year, Bea Copeland and I spearheaded the reformulation of The Coca-Cola Company's Women in Leadership programming by creating Going FurtHER, an initiative to help fast forward women earlier in the talent pipeline. The program aimed to provide tangible tools through unique partnerships with female-founded companies like Bravely, Hello Fears and Tripp. Our commitment to bringing diverse female talent to the stage was a large contributor to the program's success and earned the program the Eliminating Racism and Empowering Women Achievement Award from the YWCA.

That commitment also exposed me to a huge representation issue within the world of conferences; an enormous industry that I was not familiar with. There is a lot of work to be done at both the companies that produce events and the speakers they feature. That served as a proof point to join with friend and event leader, Robyn Duda to help launch The Change The Stage Initiative dedicated to closing the gender gap and elevating underrepresented voices on the conference stages that power the multi-billion dollar events business.

5. What is the marketing campaign you wish you'd thought of, and why?

I write a bi-weekly(ish) email to my team with the subject Work That Makes Me Jealous featuring marketing across categories that demonstrate the power of creativity. I could go on and on about great marketing work.

I especially love campaigns that blow up that status quo. The most powerful disrupt in a way that makes you take a second look and reconsider what you thought to be true. One that has personal significance to me is De Beer’s Right-Hand Ring. When De Beer’s introduced the right-hand ring, it completely made me consider a category that couldn’t have been further from my mind right out of college… the diamond ring category. The ads were all over NYC and had these badass statements…. “Your left hand is your heart. Your right hand is your voice.” The call to action, “Women of the world, raise your right hand.”

?As a young professional just starting out, those ads gave me this feeling of empowerment that I had never felt from a brand before; I felt seen for my ambition. I will never forget getting my first real paycheck, taking the subway to Macy’s on 34th Street and buying that right hand ring. That first paycheck afforded me the absolute least expensive ring in the case, on clearance sale and then further discounted with a coupon, but that didn't matter to me. Putting on that right hand ring made me feel six inches taller. I still have it.

6. What is your must read, watch, or listen for all marketers?

I’m really loving my MasterClass subscription. It’s a chance to learn new things from great minds across a diverse range of fields. My favorite course has been by Neil deGrasse Tyson. In the course, Neil speaks to the power and process of informed skepticism and the importance of asking questions.?

?7. What's an under-the-radar brand you're watching, and why?

I’m watching Mint Mobile. The wireless industry is one that’s ripe for being re-imagined. I’m excited to see a company starting to push a market that’s been dominated by only a few big players.?

8. Name a product you can't live without (that doesn't connect you to the internet) and tell us why?

Diet Coke...I run on Diet Coke.??

I also love to get lost in a great book. An actual book, not an e-reader. There’s so much more to analog; the feel of the pages, the smell of the ink, dog-earing the pages (yes, I’m one of those).??

Oh, and speaking of great marketing in response to 2020… I just pre-ordered several bottles of Powell’s book scented fragrance to share with my fellow bibliophiles. If you can’t go to Powell’s to buy a book, you can at least smell like one.?

My top three of fiction of 2020:?

1. Anxious People by Fredrik Backman
2. The Nightingale by Kristin Hannah
3. On Beauty: A Novel by Zadie Smith?

?9. Finish this sentence. "If I weren't a marketer, I would be..."

A morning news show host. Growing up I was in awe of women like Diane Sawyer, Robin Roberts and Connie Chung. I was so shy and to me they were fearless. They could switch from talking to celebrities about new movies to asking the sitting president the tough questions. I’ve always imagined they could walk into any room and have no trouble making a friend. I start each day with Savannah Guthrie and Hoda Kotb.

10. Finish this sentence, "The marketer I most want to see do this questionnaire is..."

That’s easy.?The person who made me believe in the power of creativity and humanity, Jonathan Mildenhall.

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