Coca-Cola Canada has retreated from its reliance on Lifestage, the much-touted segmentation system that compelled the cola icon to parcel out its communication strategy for its core brands among three agencies, each with responsibility for a particular age demographic.

Now it’s shifted back to the old-fashioned brand focus it started dismantling in 1993, restructuring the marketing department by brand with a manager in place for each one.

The back-to-the-future process was started over a year ago by Tracey Eckebrecht, the company’s vice-president of marketing, who says the ‘new’ strategy contributed to the company doubling its growth rate last year over 1996.

When Eckebrecht joined Coke in November 1996, the company’s approach to marketing was largely defined by Lifestage; the segmentation system implemented in stages between 1993 and 1996 by her predecessor, Chris Jordan, who was transferred to the company’s operation in Germany.

Since then, Coke has slowly but surely turned back the clock, consolidating its core-brand (Coca-Cola Classic, Diet Coke, and their caffeine-free varieties) advertising with one agency, Cossette Communication-Marketing, to maintain a consistent message regardless of age group. (Leo Burnett has responsibility for Barq’s Root Beer and all of the brands of the Minute Maid Company, including Fruitopia.)

Though Eckebrecht says Lifestage hasn’t been completely shelved, she does says it’s now just one more weapon in the arsenal.

‘To me, the biggest difference is, on the Coca-Cola brand, you had one individual working on a Lifestage called `youth’ and another called `adult’. Even though the core strategic framework was identical, the nuances of how those messages were managed in the marketplace varied.’

When you’re battling for a market worth millions, nuance matters, so the strategy now, says Eckebrecht, is to ‘focus on what makes a brand distinct as opposed to what makes a Lifestage distinct.’

Eckebrecht is also trying to achieve better integration within the entire Coca-Cola organization, particularly between Coca-Cola Canada and Coca-Cola Beverages, its principal bottler, distributor and merchandiser.

Working more closely with the bottler is crucial, she says, when developing new marketing strategies. It’s the bottler that executes the strategy and actually gets the product into the hands of consumers.

‘For example, when we put the Barq’s Root Beer launch plan together (Barq’s was introduced in the summer of 1997), we started with the consumer, of course, but then we built the plan from the market up.

‘We didn’t build the plan at the national level and then just say, `Cookie-cut this and go off and implement it.’ It was very much a collaborative effort at the regional level and then rolled up to the national level against this very strong brand.’

Eckebrecht says past job experience really helped prepare her for her role at Coca-Cola by sharpening her understanding of system integration and how to leverage an entire team against an opportunity.

She had been at Ault Foods for 10 years prior to Coke, half that time in marketing and the other half spent getting to know how the company operated – as plant superintendent of Ault’s ice-cream plant in London, Ont., as director of mis (management information systems), as director of business development and finally, as general manager of the consumer products group.

Eckebrecht says her priority at Coke is to continue to focus on brands – both existing core brands as well as some new products the company expects to introduce this year.

While she won’t reveal what those new brands are, Coke’s u.s. parent did introduce two new products last year – Citra and Surge.

In addition, Eckebrecht says the company is gearing up for what she calls one of the largest integrated marketing campaigns in the Canadian company’s history, behind the Coca-Cola Classic brand.

Canadian sales results are reported as part of the North America Group in the Coca-Cola Company’s annual report, which states the region had a 6% increase in unit case volume for 1997 while globally it grew by 9%, on top of 8% growth in 1996.