Coca Cola's 70-20-10 formula. It's the Real Thing

Real talk: Coca-Cola gave the marketing world a gift with their 70-20-10 content model… and almost nobody’s using it.

I’ve been in marketing a long time. Long enough to remember when “viral” was just a thing you caught from making out with the wrong person in a burger king bathroom (don’t judge). So when I tell you this framework is one of the smartest tools for balancing brand consistency with actual innovation, I mean it.

But still, I ask:

Why the hell is nobody using it?

Is it because it didn’t come from a TED Talk? Is it not sexy enough for the CMOs who only approve things that look good in a case study deck? Or is it just because people don’t know how to make it theirs?

Let’s fix that.

First, the Model: Coca-Cola’s 70-20-10

🟢 70% – The Core Content This is your dependable stuff. The proven winners. Your best-performing campaigns, your evergreen content, your well-oiled machines.

This is your "pay the bills" content, the reliable ads, the product promos, the stuff that keeps the sales funnel fed and the brand consistent. It’s not boring it’s strategic. It’s how you keep the lights on while you go chase greatness elsewhere.

🟡 20% – Optimization & Iteration This is where you take your 70% and remix it. You find ways to improve what’s already working.

You try new formats. Test out a different audience segment. Take your best-performing video and turn it into a live demo. Or a quiz. Or a damn musical, if you’ve got the stones.

It’s low-risk innovation that keeps your brand evolving instead of aging.

🔴 10% – Moonshots, Mayhem, and Magic This is the high-risk, high-reward content that might not work. The “our CFO would never sign off on this but let’s pitch it anyway” content. The stuff that gets people talking, not because it’s polished, but because it’s unexpected, unignorable, and maybe even a little unhinged.

This is where culture is made.

You want to go viral? Be remembered? Start word of mouth? It’s not going to happen in your 70%. Your greatness is hiding in your 10%. and the other secret of this formula is how it keeps your brand fresh. That secret is that your goal is to keep moving the "bar" and make the 10% become the 20% and your 20% gets folded into the 70%. No stagnation, always puching new things.

I Wrote a Book Full of My Best Marketing Ideas

But this framework didn’t make the cut.

Why? While I have used this formula for 20 years I left it our of the book because I didn’t invent it. I only share what I’ve lived, tested, or broken through experience.

But make no mistake: If you ignore this model, you’re choosing comfort over relevance. And your audience can smell that from a mile away.

So How Should You Use This?

Whether you’re running a global brand, a local business, or an agency (hello baby 👋), here’s how you steal this and actually make it work:

Step 1: Audit Your Marketing Mix

Look at your last 20 pieces of content. If they all look and feel the same, you’re in 70% hell. And that’s where brands go to die a slow, invisible death.

Step 2: Start Small but Commit

You don’t need Super Bowl money to execute this. Reallocate time, energy, and even your team structure to reflect 70-20-10. Maybe your junior team owns the 70. Your content strategist owns the 20. And your creative lunatics (you do have those, right?) get unleashed on the 10.

Step 3: Schedule One 10% Idea Per Quarter

Make it mandatory. Hold a WTF Brainstorm (or book an Idea Bootcamp with me) every 90 days and pick one idea that makes you nervous. You’ll learn more from launching one weird thing than you will from a year of safe campaigns.

Step 4: Institutionalize the Model

Make it part of your planning process, your content calendar, your budget breakdowns. Build it into the culture so people have permission to experiment and room to play.

Final Thought:

If Coca-Cola can take risks with a 137-year-old global brand, what’s your excuse?

You don’t need permission to be brilliant. You just need a plan. And this model is the plan.

Stop waiting for inspiration to strike or the algorithm to magically bless you. Structure is the cheat code.

And if you want a blueprint of what your 10% could look like? Well, that’s in my book, buy one next month or hire me now. The rest of the unhinged, unpredictable, unforgettable stuff? I’ve got more where that came from.

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