Ben Gilbert

And there should be a democratic approach to this where it's not just one creative director at one agency.

You want the best ideas that can come from anywhere.

And we have all the talent relationships with all these different writers, directors, actors.

You just give us a creative brief.

We'll come back with 30 great ideas for you from 30 different sources.

Well... Yeah, I mean, he didn't make the Polar Bears, but... Ovitz found the talent through the CAA network to make the Polar Bears.

So I think this is basically the climax of our story.

New Coke, what happens afterwards, the polar bears, these beloved ads.

The rest of the 90s and 2000s, there's a lot of company building that happens, but it's just not that romantic of a story as much as Coca-Cola's first century was.

That's right.

I forgot Quaker Oats ended up owning it.

I had no idea.

Wow.

Yeah, and that is a little illustration of the CEO at the time.

There have been five CEOs since Gosweta, 1998 onward, and the first three only lasted three to four years each.

Very different than the Woodruff dynasty in the long run that Gosweta had also.

The thing that is extremely clear that, David, you touched on is they had to diversify into what they call a total beverage company.

really prompted by this backlash against soft drinks.

The world sort of lost interest in first full sugar colas and then colas.

And the thing that was kind of driving it, not really in the 90s, but in the 2000s and certainly the 2010s, obesity.