(When I took over) “we had become ingrown. Most of the meeting we were holding were just with ourselves. We weren’t going out to see how the world was changing. So we put a stop to all those meetings”.  A wake up call for us all, perhaps? A moment to check our own diaries and those of our senior team?

On talking to customers, this response: “In the past we needed premium advertising to create effective consumer impressions. Today consumers are much more empowered, so you need to communicate with them. We have more than 33 million fans on Coca-Cola Facebook pages – the largest Facebook of any single brand – and it wasn’t created by us. Five years ago social media was 3% of our total media spend. Today it is 20% and growing fast. How is your new media strategy, and have you faced into Facebook yet?

Oh, and this is why he does it: “The value is you can talk with them. They tell you things that are important for your business and brands.”  Wow, free research!

Then the issue of staying on the radar of those that matter. “At the end of the day, when you are CEO of a company that employs 140,000 people in 206 markets around the world, you can only influence….. I love to visit supermarkets, to be with customers….you need to see what’s happening….because you learn….and it’s important to be seen because we are in a people business. You just can’t sit in your home or inside your office and read. You have to see, and be seen.” Back to those diaries again, eh?

And never eat alone? That was Kent’s conclusion after losing his job, with Coca-Cola in Rome, following a reorganization. “I was about to pack up and return to the States when someone in the company whom I’d met just once – I guess I’d made an impression on him – phoned me up and set up a meeting. He gave me a break – and a job based in Amsterdam. The lesson is: Always create and nurture. Never eat alone.” And he went on to become CEO – how interesting.

See you next time.