Dooner Has Master Plan for Coca-Cola

Interpublic Group CEO John Dooner is implementing a plan he is calling “The Coke Solution,” which calls for the creation of a new system to oversee and troubleshoot on one of the holding company’s biggest global accounts, Coca-Cola.

The initiative would unite account and creative executives from various IPG-Coke agencies and be steered by Bill Grogan, group management director at McCann-Erickson. The team would report to Gunnar Wilmot, IPG svp, planning and business development.

IPG’s McCann has been struggling on Coke Classic and has been trying to recruit a creative director on the account for months, and the holding company wants “to change the way the relationship is managed,” one source said.

“It’ll be a more organized way of dealing with the client that makes sense,” another source said, adding, “It means a clearer definition of roles [within IPG] and heightens awareness of those roles across agency resources.”

Grogan declined comment; Wilmot could...