Sergio Zyman.

• Author: Porter, Martin
• Position: Director Spotlight - Profile on the board member of College Television Network Inc.

Looking for some marketing pizzazz, College Television Network adds the 'Ayacola' to its board.

When Coca-Cola Chairman and CEO Douglas Ivester was first promoted to head of the company's North American operations in the early '90s, he spent many weekends visiting Sergio Zyman's home-basement office for tutoring sessions on the finer points of marketing. Zyman, who in 1986 relinquished his position as senior vice president of marketing at Coca-Cola following the company's ill-fated launch of New Coke, was astonished when Ivester eventually asked him back to shake up the company's $1.6 billion marketing and advertising operation. Zyman would become Coca-Cola's first chief marketing officer, a newly created position with unprecedented budgetary control across many different divisions throughout the organization.

"You've got to be kidding," was Zyman's response to Ivester on hearing the news. "Look at my hair. I don't wear suits...I drive a Porsche."

"I know exactly who you are," Zyman recalls Ivester as saying, according to an account published in the Wall Street Journal. "I know the flies that come with the dog."

With Ivester's vote of confidence, Zyman, nicknamed the "Ayacola" during his first stint at Coca-Cola for his brash and sometimes abrasive manner, returned to the company in 1993. During his five-year tenure as chief marketing officer, Zyman remodeled Coca-Cola's marketing strategy, which helped restore youth to the Coke image and its brands while increasing sales volume.

Now a marketing consultant, Zyman joins the board of College Television Network Inc. (CTN), a rapidly growing multimedia company which broadcasts live programming and advertising via satellite to 1.2 million college students nationwide.

The company has all the makings that would attract any marketing executive. Atlanta-based CTN is "the only game in town with direct access to college students," says Zyman of the broadcaster's ability to reach the coveted 18-24 age demographic. "CTN talks with more young adults every day than the average Fox prime time show - and delivers them for a fraction of the cost of network advertising."

CTN has "programming that is very well-targeted, and the company has the mechanics and potential for growth," he says. Joining the CTN board is a unique opportunity to "Go right in and make an immediate contribution," because the company's marketing objectives are "right down my alley."

Zyman, a 53-year-old Mexico City native and Harvard...