Meet Our People

Leo Roberts

Your friend tags a photo of your name printed across a Coke bottle. You like it, share it, and then go looking for it at your local corner shop.

Leo Roberts is one of the talented Coke marketing staff behind the ground-breaking Share a Coke campaign. Here, he talks about his role as Group Marketing Manager, Integrated Marketing Communications.

Without doubt, the ‘Share a Coke’ campaign has been a career highlight so far. I was lucky enough to be one of the few people who was in the room when the idea was originally pitched – we knew we were on to something special.

The reason the campaign was such a great project to work on was the fact that it really demonstrated the strength of our business system. When everyone pulls together, we have the ability to create truly outstanding work.

Every single function within our business, our bottling partner Coca‑ColaAmatil, our agency partners and a whole range of other stakeholders all collaborated to create the campaign.

My title is a long one: Group Marketing Manager, Integrated Marketing Communications. I lead a team of talented people that seek to provide leadership, consultation and support to our brand teams and agency partners in the development of best in class marketing communications solutions.

My team are subject matter experts across a range of disciplines including Content, Connections, Sponsorships, Digital, Social Media and Promotions. 

My job is to lead this team and make sure we have the best process and partners in place so that our investment in communications helps achieve our stated marketing and business objectives.    

When I was young, I wanted to be a rock star when I grew up. I was in a band with one of my brothers and a few friends but sadly we lacked any talent. I also wanted to be an architect and at some stage dentistry also appealed. 

An inspiring university lecturer and two of my brothers working at advertising agencies led me into a career in marketing.

I’m an early bird so I usually get to the office at 8am if not before. Typically I’ll use that first hour to catch-up on emails and prepare for any meetings that I have that day.

The meetings are usually very interesting and can cover quite a range of topics. They might include an update to the Marketing Director on the status of an on-going project, a meeting with my team to discuss a Brands IMC plan or a conference call with a Coca‑Cola colleague from another geography to discuss work that we can import into or export out of Australia.

I also spend quite a bit of time with our agency partners or in meetings with marketing services suppliers who want the opportunity to work with Coca‑Cola South Pacific.

The best thing about our office is the view I have of the Harbour Bridge from my desk. As an Englishman working in Australia it doesn’t get any better than that!

The single most rewarding thing about my work is a really easy question to answer. It’s the people. I’ve been here seven years, and it’s never dull!

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