Friday Wake-Up Call: Coca-Cola is buying a global coffee chain, and other news to know today | Advertising

Welcome to Ad Age’s Wake-Up Call, our daily roundup of advertising, marketing, media and digital news. You can get an audio version of this briefing on your Alexa device. Search for “Ad Age” under “Skills” in the Alexa app. What people are talking about today: Coca-Cola Co. is buying a global coffee chain. The company says it will spend $5.1 billion to buy the UK’s Costa Coffee, which has almost 4,000 locations in 32 countries, The Wall Street Journal reports. In comparison, Starbucks has 28,000 stores in 77 markets. Like Starbucks, Costa has been expanding its presence in China, a fast-growing market for coffee.

Missing piece: “Hot beverages is one of the few remaining segments of the total beverage landscape where Coca-Cola does not have a global brand,” Coca-Cola Chief Executive Officer James Quincey said in a statement. This deal fills that gap. (Coke does already have a brand of canned, ready-to-drink coffee called Georgia that’s popular in Japan and some other Asian markets.)

Some context: Coca-Cola is buying Costa from the UK’s Whitbread Plc. “The acquisition is also the latest sign of how soda makers are diversifying as they look to move beyond sugary pop,” The Wall Street Journal writes. “PepsiCo Inc. earlier this month bought seltzer-machine maker SodaStream International Ltd. for $3.2 billion.” (Score one for Midwesterners: The Journal called it “pop,” not “soda.”)

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