Coca-Cola

Over 1.9 billion servings of Coca-Cola’s drinks are enjoyed in more than 200 countries each day. Coca-Cola chose EVRYTHNG to transform billions of cans and bottles into smart, owned media channels, revolutionizing their direct-to-consumer relationships.

The Challenge

Coca-Cola wanted to engage directly with consumers through digitally activated Coca-Cola products to deliver one-to-one contextual and ‘in the moment’ mobile experiences. This was seen as an opportunity to super-charge Coca-Cola’s data-driven marketing strategies with real-time intelligence captured through this direct-to-consumer engagement.

The Solution

One of the first deployments was a season-long campaign for the German Bundesliga using its products as an owned media channel. Consumers were incentivized to digitally connect with 18 specially designed Coke Zero cans, each imprinted with different soccer club logos using a smartphone. Scanning the can of a favorite club, consumers could win a soccer shirt. The promotion landing page—a virtual soccer game—delivered personalized and contextual information based on the product SKU, time, date, and real-time geo-location. The EVRYTHNG IoT SaaS platform managed the real-time data flowing between products and consumers and also provided Coca-Cola with real-time data intelligence and supported the company’s precision marketing and integrated CRM initiatives.

“EVRYTHNG’s IoT platform met all our technical requirements. With billions of always-on products across Europe, we needed the chosen solution to be future-proof and scalable to handle real-time, personalized experiences for massive sales volumes.” - Michael Schwarz Head of Digital Acceleration, Coca-Cola Western Europe

The Result

The campaign exceeded all targets for scan engagement volumes and conversion rates. Digitally activated CocaCola products proved to be the most effective way to drive traffic and engagement to Coke-owned platforms, generating more interactions than comparable digital media such as display ads or social media. Ten percent of web traffic came from users who had scanned products, higher than any other owned media source, and outperforming other media channels

In addition, each and every scan generated rich data, including product details, team preference, user profile and history, geo-location, time, and date. The initial campaign was so successful, Coca-Cola expanded beyond Germany to create direct digital connections with consumers through its products—in 28 markets across Europe and North America.