E786 | A Branding Masterclass From A Multi-Billion Dollar Company

What Physical Therapists Can Learn from Coca-Cola’s Marketing Genius

Branding isn’t just for massive corporations—it’s crucial for small businesses, too. While Coca-Cola may not seem to have much in common with physical therapy at first glance, its marketing strategies offer powerful lessons for PT entrepreneurs looking to stand out, attract loyal clients, and build a lasting reputation.

During a recent visit to the World of Coca-Cola in Atlanta, I couldn’t help but be fascinated by the brand’s history and marketing power. Despite never drinking soda, I found myself drawn to how Coca-Cola has built one of the most recognizable brands in the world. Their ability to connect with people emotionally, create loyalty, and stand out in a crowded market is something every business owner should study—especially those in physical therapy.

So what can PTs learn from Coca-Cola’s marketing success? Here are four major takeaways.

1. Brand Identity is Everything

Coca-Cola’s brand is instantly recognizable. Whether it’s the iconic red and white logo, the contour bottle, or the classic script font, they’ve created a visual identity that has remained consistent for over a century. Even if you don’t drink soda, you know Coca-Cola when you see it.

As a physical therapist, your brand should be just as recognizable in your space. That doesn’t mean you need a billion-dollar marketing budget, but you do need consistency. Your logo, clinic colors, website design, and social media presence should all be aligned to create a clear, professional image.

Beyond visuals, your messaging matters too. What do you want people to associate with your practice? Performance? Pain relief? A long-term solution to their injuries? Coca-Cola wants people to associate their product with happiness and connection. Your practice should be just as clear in its branding.

Action Step: Make sure your brand is consistent across all platforms—your website, business cards, social media, and even the way you speak about your practice. If someone removed your name from your content, would they still recognize it as yours?

2. Emotional Storytelling is More Powerful than Features

Coca-Cola doesn’t sell soda. They sell happiness, nostalgia, and connection. Their ads focus on people enjoying time together, whether it’s at the holidays, a summer barbecue, or a big celebration. The product is secondary—the emotion is what sticks.

PTs often make the mistake of focusing too much on what they do rather than the outcome their patients experience. People don’t care about dry needling, joint mobilizations, or how many certifications you have. They care about getting back to playing basketball with their kids, hiking pain-free, or avoiding surgery.

Nike does this brilliantly, too. Their ads don’t talk about shoe materials or technology; they inspire people to be their best, overcome obstacles, and push their limits. Apple takes a similar approach, focusing on how their products fit into people's lives rather than just listing technical specs.

For PTs, the best marketing is patient success stories. Show how your care helps real people get their lives back. Highlighting a runner who completed their first marathon after an injury is far more powerful than a post about “the benefits of manual therapy.”

Action Step: Start collecting and sharing patient success stories. Post them on social media, include them in emails, and highlight them on your website. Focus on how your work improves people’s lives, not just the treatments you provide.

3. Give Value First to Build Loyalty

When Asa Candler took over Coca-Cola in 1891, he did something bold—he gave away free drink coupons at an unheard-of scale. By 1920, one in nine Americans had used a free Coke coupon. Why? Because he was confident that once people tried it, they’d come back for more.

PTs can apply the same principle. Most people don’t realize how much better they can feel until they experience great physical therapy. Offering free workshops, assessments, or valuable content is a great way to attract new clients and prove your expertise.

Giving value upfront builds trust. If a potential client watches your videos, reads your blog posts, or attends a free workshop, they’re far more likely to become paying clients because they already know, like, and trust you.

Action Step: Think about what you can offer for free that provides value to potential clients. This could be a workshop, a short consultation, or even an engaging social media post that educates people about how to prevent injuries.

4. Adapt Without Losing Your Core Identity

Coca-Cola has evolved over the years, introducing new products like Diet Coke, Coke Zero, and different flavors, but they’ve never strayed too far from their core brand. They’re still Coca-Cola at their foundation, but they’ve innovated to stay relevant.

Physical therapists need to do the same. If your business is only offering traditional one-on-one PT sessions, you might be limiting yourself. Many successful PTs have branched out into small group training, online coaching, digital courses, and other revenue streams.

The key is to expand while staying true to your expertise. If you specialize in treating runners, consider offering a remote injury-prevention program. If you focus on active adults, think about launching a small-group performance class. The more ways people can engage with your brand, the stronger your business becomes.

Action Step: Look for ways to expand your services while staying true to your niche. Could you offer a group program? A digital course? A new specialty service? Find what aligns with your brand and audience.

Final Thoughts

Coca-Cola’s marketing success isn’t just about having a big budget—it’s about understanding human psychology. They know that people connect with emotion, storytelling, and brand identity more than facts and features. The same applies to your PT business.

• Be clear and consistent with your brand.
• Use emotional storytelling to showcase patient success.
• Give value upfront to build trust and loyalty.
• Expand your offerings without losing your core identity.

Branding isn’t just for soda companies. It’s what makes businesses stand the test of time. If Coca-Cola can dominate the beverage industry for over a century, imagine what applying even a fraction of their strategy could do for your PT practice.

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Podcast Transcript

Danny:  Hey, real quick, if you were serious about starting or growing your cash based practice, I want to formally invite you to go to Facebook and join our PT entrepreneurs Facebook group. This is a group of over 6, 000 providers all over the country. And it's a pretty amazing place to start to get involved in the conversation.

Hope to see you there soon. Hey, are you a physical therapist looking to leverage your skill set in a way that helps you create time and financial freedom for yourself and your family? If so, you're in the right spot. My name is Danny Matta. And over the last 15 years, I've done pretty much everything you can in the profession.

I've been a staff PT. I've been an active duty military officer, physical therapist. I've started my own cash practice. I've sold that cash practice. And today my company physical therapy business helped over a thousand clinicians start growing scale their own cash practices So if this sounds like something you want to do listen up because i'm here to help you.

Hey, what's going on? Dr. Danny here with the pt entrepreneur podcast and today i want to do something a little bit different and I want to dig into a business That I found pretty interesting. And in particular, a business that I think might have the strongest brand on the planet. And I bring this up because I'm in Atlanta.

That's where I live. And this business is headquartered in Atlanta. Now this might. It's my give it away. I'm for which one I'm talking about, but that business is Coca Cola as I get it. Say what you want. It's sugar water causing significant health issues. It's okay, sure. Agreed. But a lot of people drink it.

And they have so many products. It's crazy. But the story of Coca Cola is so fascinating. And if you don't know Atlanta is the headquarters for Coca Cola. It was invented here. It's headquarters is here. And they have something here called the World of Coke. And the World of Coke is like this Coca Cola museum basically.

We've, I've never taken my family. We don't really drink soda. I never really grew up drinking Coke or anything like that. But I actually went here. I went to the World of Coke when I was I was in high school. We lived in Columbus, Georgia for a little while when my dad was stationed there, and it's an hour and a half drive.

So one weekend we came up and we went to the World of Coke, which was not a big hit for me because, like I said, I don't drink I don't drink soda. I never enjoyed it. And so one of the big perks of the world of coke is at the end they have this tasting room and you can literally try different soda variations from all over the world.

And there's like weird ones and ones you may have never heard of and all kinds of different flavors. People will just drink as much soda as they possibly can at the end. And that wasn't a big. It wasn't a big selling factor for me, so I actually don't remember it that well, but we recently went back over the holidays.

My kids thought it was awesome. And I actually was fascinated by the world of Coke. I was not because of the actual product, but because of the sheer marketing and branding genius that is Coca Cola, like at a minimum. You got to respect the game when it comes to Coca Cola. Whereas like it or not drink it or not.

Doesn't matter. Like they are legitimately probably the most recognizable brand on the planet. I think I would say them and then probably Nike after them, but Coca Cola, I think is the most recognizable brand on the planet. So I want to. Tell you a little bit about the history of coca cola and more than anything Some of the marketing and branding things they've done that are really interesting and the intent the intentional focus that they had on branding and marketing was actually The thing that I thought was most interesting and the reason that I want you to be aware of this is because you have And that means that you have a brand and you have an opportunity to build something that's really special that people identify with.

And sometimes you got to think a bit outside the box. It just can't be, it can't be the same as everybody else. There has to be more to it to develop your brand. You have to really think about what you're trying to express and why, and the details matter. And I'm going to talk about some of that with this.

Okay. Coca Cola. For those of like I said, it was invented in Atlanta. So right here by Dr. John Pemberton in 1886. So Pemberton, he's a war veteran and he's sick. He's got some ailments and he was an inventor. And one of the things he was trying to invent. was something that would help deal with these different sicknesses that he had and some of the injuries that he had from his time in war.

So he developed what he thought was this medical syrup that would cure things like headaches and make you feel better and boost your energy, right? And it had things in it like Cocoa leaf extract as well as caffeine, right? Okay, it makes sense. They'll pick me up. So in May of 1986 He finds himself in some financial trouble and he starts to sell you know his coca cola product to Local pharmacies and so they can make the soda drink out of it for five cents It's but it's not really doing all that So he eventually decides that he's going to sell like portions of his company off.

Just to make some money. One local Atlanta, like wealthy businessman, his name was Asa Candler, and there's a huge portion Park here in Atlanta called Candler Park is Asa Candler guy Likes his recipe tries it and decides he's going to buy the whole thing So he buy he buys the whole company for not a super significant amount of money but Definitely more than this guy probably had ever seen before buys it in 1981.

He buys the entire share and Asa Candler is Essentially the marketing genius behind what Coca Cola eventually turns into. So there's a lot of things they did that were really fascinating in regards to their marketing. So number one one of the things that he did that was Really unique was free drink coupons.

So he was not the first person to do this, but the first person to do this at scale. So he would give out free drink coupons and and not a little bit, like a massive amount. They had a massive campaign to give out free. Drink coupons. So this is at the time he takes over. It's 1891. And by 1920, it's estimated that one in every nine U S citizens, every nine Americans, one in every nine has used a free sample Coca Cola coupon.

Think about that for a second. One in nine has gotten a free coupon and used it. That's crazy. And the reason they did it because they were sure that their product was good that people would want to come back and drink it again. Not only did they give like free coupons away, but they also were really good about their slogans.

And they're marketing like they would use things like delicious and refreshing or the pause that refreshes like these things that they would put on different slogans for marketing. And it reminds me of Mad Men, right? Part of that actually, the end of that series is them working on this famous Coca Cola brand ad.

But when you think about marketing, you think about how people did it back in the day. There wasn't the internet, there wasn't digital marketing, so what did they do? They were giving out free coupons. They were branding things and they were doing something that Coca Cola is actually like really famous for where they have branded merchandise.

And you'll see this with like soda machines. So like a a vending machine, if you want to find a vintage Coca Cola vending machine, it's insane. I couldn't believe how expensive they were. They were talking about how collectible they are. And you'll spend thousands and thousands of dollars on a vintage Coca Cola machine.

They would brand clocks and calendars and all kinds of things. In the early stages as the company was growing and then it got an even more brand deals. If you look at some of the things they're doing with professional athletes and things that legitimately have nothing to do with the actual underlying product, right?

What does the NBA, like NBA Olympic team have to do with Coca Cola? Like nothing, right? Directly, indirectly, they just want to make you feel a certain way. In the early nineties they started getting ripped off a lot, like tons of people that were imitating Coca Cola and they would basically like change a letter or keep the same script on it.

And one of the things that they did that was unique. Was design a bottle so that people could tell if it was the real coca cola or not. So this is a 1915 so in 1915 they have a brand meeting and this is essentially the sentence that it all boiled down to We're here to design a bottle so distinct that it can be recognized by touch in the dark or lying broken on the ground.

Think about that for a second. A bottle so distinct that it could be recognized by touch in the dark or lying broken on the ground. They wanted to differentiate themselves so much with something unique to what the actual brand felt like, like physically felt like, with a Coca Cola bottle. And I would say many people could probably pick up a bottle and know almost right away That is Coca Cola.

Even me, I don't even drink Coca Cola, but I could definitely figure that out. It's a distinct bottle. And they were so intentional about the bottle because they wanted people to know that it was the real deal. And the other thing they did that was fascinating, so this is where it gets like, it gets really interesting, is they leaned into this a little bit.

So they leaned into this and they made their own sort of news headlines about all of the ripoffs and all of the things in the secret formula that they had and they were so secretive about it that they literally built a vault like there's a vault At the world of coke where the actual the actual recipe sits and before that it was in new york city in a vault and they made this big deal out of transporting it and it was huge news about the coca cola secret and all this and they started talking about how they were being infiltrated by spies so that they couldn't have it written down when they were making it and they had to go off of smell and three different people knew different parts of the actual recipe so that No one knew how to make it themself, except for the main guy, like Asa Candler and like they built this mystique around it almost like a Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory.

He, that, that's what it reminds me of, but this was intentional. This wasn't like something that they didn't lean into. This was free advertising for them, right? They realized that and it made them famous. It made the story just so recognizable and so aware that everybody knew what the brand was and it grew like crazy to probably what is the biggest brand on the planet.

The scripts and the letters, right? Like you probably recognize that looks like the bottle. Hey, sorry to interrupt the podcast. I have a huge favor to ask of you. If you are a longtime listener or a new listener and you're finding value in this podcast, please head over to iTunes or Spotify or wherever you listen to the podcast.

And please leave a rating and review. This is actually very helpful for us to get this podcast in front of more clinicians and really help them develop time and financial freedom. So if you would do that, I would greatly appreciate it. Now back to the podcast. And then from there, obviously they continue to grow and they did a lot of interesting advertising.

One of the things that I always thought was interesting. There's a couple things. What the hell does Santa Claus and polar bears have to do with soda? Doesn't Make any sense to me, right? Santa drinks milk and eats cookies, but yet somehow they came up with the idea in the 1930s. The Coca Cola would partner with this famous illustrator.

There's a great images of Santa Claus looking all happy in his red suit and drinking a Coca Cola. And it's every year, they have their holiday branded. Coca Cola ads since the thirties. This has been going on for almost a hundred years. Some point in time they introduced polar bears, which are incredibly, large, dangerous animals that now they're sliding down Hills, drinking soda with one another, right?

Like it's ridiculous if you really think about it, but it's, it works for them. It invokes an emotion. It makes people feel a certain way. And what they found is storytelling and emotion is what connected their marketing the most. That's what created the brand recognition. That's what created the brand.

Loyalty because they want people to feel a certain way and then associate Coca Cola with that. Apple does the same thing. If you ever watch an Apple ad, it's never, here's a feature. Hey, Oh, click this button. This is slightly faster. The chip in this is this much faster. The retina screen is this much more visible or the phone is this much lighter.

It's never that it's literally I don't know, a guy at a soccer game and he's running late and he pulls up at the last moment and his kid scores a soccer goal and everybody's going wild. And he's has happy tears because he didn't miss it. And what, and then all of a sudden it's like Apple, right?

Like it's a new, I get the new iPhone and they have no idea. There's what does this have to do with the freaking phone? But it works because it evokes a brand emotion. Storytelling and emotion and you weave some sort of product into that. And this is where it gets really hard. If you think about it for what we do and really the thing that I think of that is the most, replicate replicable variation of this is your patients is telling the story of your patients and the heroes that they are in their own life, getting back to the things that they do or the life that they have and being able to.

To overcome these really challenging injuries that you help them with and being able to highlight your patients, whether that's an email or that's in a video and telling their stories that connects with people in a really unique way, frankly, far more than get your discounted visit, and it'll work with that as well, because as you can see, they use free coupons and emotional marketing, right?

So it's connect with this person, give them a reason why to come in. This is just from a huge brand perspective, how can this be distilled down a little bit? In 1971, this is the That, this is, I think this is the Mad Men finish. The, I'd like to buy the world a Coke ad. This is a famous ad that connected the brand with ideas of peace and and unity.

It solidified Coca Cola. That it was like more of a drink and it was more of this global experience. And it's You'd like to buy the whole world of Coke. If you really think about it, this is just what the hell are they talking about? Cause we know it's not necessarily the healthiest thing in the world, but Hey, we're sharing this moment together.

It's this cold, refreshing drink and you're around friends at the summer, and you're enjoying your, you're enjoying the time at the beach or whatever it is. That's what they want you to feel. And that's what they're so good at. Share a Coke campaign was in 2011. And this is where they printed names people's names on bottles to create an even deeper connection with the brand This is genius, like they did all these things that are essentially tying the company to emotions and storytelling and They probably do it just as good if not better than anybody else I think apple's up there with them as well and probably nike if you really think of brand identity, emotion, some of the, like the 90 the Nike, like just do it ads, the be like Mike ads where Michael Jordan, this is in his heyday and he's just, playing basketball and there's a little kid and, it's just I want to be like Mike that campaign like that probably sold so many freaking shoes.

So many shoes and it, all it was an emotional branding advertisement that was connected like crazy because people relate to storytelling and emotions much more so than they do the actual nuts and bolts of whatever you're doing. And this is probably the biggest thing that you can realize as.

Somebody that has to advertise somebody that has it has to build a brand if you have a business you have to understand this It's what you think is important. Oh, we work with you for 60 minutes. We dry needle We're experts in musculoskeletal care. We have blood flow restriction cuffs. Nobody gives a fuck That's the reality of what they're thinking versus you highlighting your patients that are getting back to you know Playing basketball with their kid It's shouting that out or hiking again, and it's them with your shirt on top of a mountain that they just climbed.

And you're shouting out how proud you are of that person and their story. That's the stuff that people will resonate with far more if you're trying to build a brand. And I highly recommend you build a brand because that's going to insulate you from competition in such a unique way. When you think there's so many different types of soda out there, why is Coca Cola still the number one?

Because they're the most recognizable on the planet. They do the best job of advertising and marketing, especially with emotional storytelling. They crush it with that. So there's a couple lessons I think we can learn from this. So number one, consistency in branding, Coca Cola's logo, their bottle, their design of their bottle.

It's basically remained the same for over a hundred years and, but yet they take that same logo and they reapply it in different ways. You can do the same thing with your brand, your logo, whatever that is. You can apply it on different things. Swag that you give away hats shirts. You can do seasonal things with it You know, you can you can do a holiday variation a st.

Patrick's Day variation, you know You can do local brand deals with other business owners as well If it's a gym and you do some sort of you know combined thing with them like think about how coca cola does this with people and how you can do something similar in terms of Consistency with your branding and make sure that your branding looks right all your presentations look right?

This is something that I can promise you I thought Had zero effect on a business up until about five years ago. I didn't think twice about what my logo was. Whenever we started athletes potential, I got it done for 15 bucks off of fiber or whatever. And we changed it. Like we we rebanded, rebranded it about five years in.

When, my wife and I realized like, Oh man, we need to do a better job with this. We're very intentional about it. We spent a lot of money on it. We really focused on what the colors meant to us, why, and like what we wanted people to feel and why the logo looked the way that it did. So take some time on that, but really think about how you can re leverage this in different ways.

One of the easiest ways to do it is shirts. Put it on really nice shirts people want to wear. And it's free marketing all over the city, like that's easy. That's super easy. Make the shirts comfortable, making something that somebody wants to wear and give them away. That is branding for you.

And people will wear those to their gym. They'll wear them, wherever they're going on a run, people see that and they'll associate your brand with being active, which is what we wanted. Innovation and adaptation. This company introduced new products like. Diet Coke and Coke Zero to meet these different consumer preferences.

So they're constantly like tweaking and changing things somewhat, right? So like they're taking their core product and they're leveraging it in a slightly different way. How can you take what you do, which is probably physical therapy visits and tweak that a little bit, right? Maybe that's you do some sort of.

Semi private small group course or a training in person. So you're taking that same sort of, core understanding of human movement and you're applying a slightly different way. Maybe it's some sort of digital product, some sort of, remote coaching or some sort of productized service that you have that then you can replicate that with your niche and more of a digital fashion, right?

It can be a lot of different things that you can just make small tweaks to your IP, your sort of intellectual knowledge and your intellectual property. And you can make those changes in a way where you now have. Multiple streams of services. The last thing I'll say is to really focus and understand that Coca Cola's campaigns are about happiness, being together, celebration.

These things are universal and they resonate all across the world, right? This is people associate with that. They want to be feel connected to other people. They want to feel happy. And in their advertisements, that's what they show, right? They don't show somebody's rising a one C if they drink just nothing but soda.

That's not what they're trying to get across. They're trying to get across that, Hey, this is how we celebrate. We have a Coke together. You and me, let's grab a Coke buddy. That's what they want you to feel. They want you to feel that through the holidays. They want you to feel that through like sporting events, through all the stuff that they do because they know that storytelling and emotion connect people in an advertising way far more than like the actual.

Nuts and bolts of whatever it is that they're selling. Nobody cares. They care about what this makes them feel like if they enjoy it. Great. But if you can tell a story about it, that makes them feel emotionally connected in some way, even better. So think about your, the way you can emotionally connect with people.

This is where social media is great. This is where highlighting your patients is great. This is where building your brand around, an avatar and interests that people have and being a part of something. You can tell that same story. Now, maybe you don't have Coca Cola's advertising budget.

Maybe you don't have this huge marketing team. Maybe you don't have all the assets they have, but you have your brain, you have your creativity. You can think through these things. You can start to figure out, all right how does this apply to my brand? How does this, I work with runners. How does this apply to runners?

Okay, cool. Let's think about what you can do with local running stores and partnerships you can do and co branding things and different swag that runners like and all that. And you can start on a small scale. To do things that are going to be similar to what big brands like a Coca Cola and a Nike can do to be able to build a bulletproof brand.

And that takes time too. You're talking about a company that's been around for over a hundred years. Patience is another huge thing. They've been around for over a hundred years and they primarily sell the same thing that they came up with over a hundred years ago. That's crazy. They didn't deviate from it too much.

They make these small tweaks. Don't be impatient. Focus on your core product. Make it awesome. Make it better. Make it, unique and recognizable and Fantastic results and focus on that and focus on people associating Whatever it is that you want them to associate with your brand If it's being an active person and staying active for as long as you possibly can Have them associate that with your brand through the things that you're talking about the stories You're telling the people you're sharing the information you're curating all that has to be in alignment with what you're trying to do As far as a business is concerned with your brand that's coca cola.

I I hope you like this one You know, this is something that when I went to the world of coke and maybe you've been there. I don't know I Could care less about coca cola Itself, but man, it was hard for my family to get me out of there because I was just I was reading everything I was so fascinated with the actual marketing side of it the advertising side of it I mean, they're so they're geniuses when it comes to this stuff and I just found it Like incredibly interesting and to be able to tell the story of this company, it was fun for me to dig into it a little bit and just see how they got to where they're at and all the twists and turns.

And it's way more, there's way more there with the business. It isn't really relevant to the business side, this sort of like some drama around it and all this stuff. And there's obviously makes a story more interesting, but but for you listening to this, I hope that this. Association between Coca Cola on the brand side and what you can do with your own business.

You can learn some lessons from this because like I said, we don't have these multi billion dollar companies, right? But we can learn from them. And if we really take a step back and we look at these from a 30, 000 foot view, what made them successful? What, what makes them resonate today?

What makes them have sticking power? It's the world's fast changing. Like business is fast changing. If your business is around for 10 years, you're an absolute rockstar. It gets a hard thing to do. So this is a company that's been around for over a hundred years and I don't see him going anywhere anytime soon.

So hope you like this one as always. Thanks for listening. And we'll catch you on the next one.

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