Posted by Ajay Kelkar on Sun, Jul 05, 2009
Many businesses do not have direct interactions with their customers. Service industries like Retailers, Banks & Telecom companies have millions of customer interactions which give them the customer’s pulse! How do packaged consumer goods companies achieve the same customer intimacy?
Coke has done a fantastic job of creating a strong connection with its consumers. Coke’s marketing team first asked themselves three questions: 1)How can we connect with consumers? 2)How can we collect relevant information from consumers? 3) And finally, How can we perfect those relationships over time?
This led to a path breaking program called My Coke Rewards. Read more about this and the unique technology platform they used at:
http://www.edmblog.com/weblog/files/MyCokeRewards.pdf
Coke has now taken this data led thinking to yet another marketing innovation!
Coca-Cola doesn't think its customers have enough drink choices. Recently diners at some California, Georgia, and Utah fast-food joints got to try a self-serve drink dispenser that pours more than 100 varieties of sodas, juices, teas, and flavored waters.
Coke plans to roll out the Freestyle drink dispenser nationwide, eventually putting tens of thousands of them in places such as McDonald's, Burger King, and Willy's Mexican Grill. And while the machine is taking the concept of customer choice to new heights, the most interesting aspect is the technology it's built on. Freestyle will become Coke's front-line robotic army for business intelligence, sending massive amounts of consumption data back to the beverage company's Atlanta headquarters.
But what's more important is that Coke will be collecting data on every pour, to gain intelligence on what brands and flavors are most popular. According to Information Week:
Freestyle will let Coke more easily test new drink flavors and new beverage concepts, such as adding various vitamin combinations to flavored waters and juices. The dispensers each contain 30 cartridges of flavorings that mix up 100 different drink combinations. The cartridges are tagged with radio frequency ID chips, and each dispenser contains an RFID reader. The dispensers collect data on what customers are drinking and how much, and transmit that information each night over a private Verizon wireless network to Coke's SAP data warehouse system in Atlanta. The company will use the data to develop reports that assess how new drinks are doing in the market, identify differences in regional tastes, and help fast-food outlets decide which drinks to serve.
Instead of focus groups and customer surveys, Coke will use technology (RFID, wireless connections) to gain actual consumption information.
Definitely other Consumer goods companies will take notice as they look to gain customer insight from anonymous customers.
Read more about this interesting analytics led marketing innovation at:
http://www.informationweek.com/news/mobility/RFID/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=217701971&pgno=1&queryText=&isPrev=