Launching a Revolutionary New Beverage Fountain Experience

The Challenge

Consumer products companies sell physical stuff, and think digital innovation means social media campaigns and selling on Amazon. But the Coca-Cola Company, a client of 15+ years, thinks bigger than that. They came to us to transform a ground-breaking new beverage dispensing technology into a complete consumer and customer value proposition but bringing the concept of the live beverage experience to life required more than just a name. The full consumer and customer experience had to be informed and defined by our work.

These included: The value proposition, the brand and positioning, the business model and go-to-market strategy.

The Key Insight

We assessed the market, defined growth opportunities and developed sales tools to drive adoption. Coke’s proprietary microdosing technology could enable unprecedented variety beyond the traditional six valves found in existing equipment. In addition to providing access to new flavors, our research uncovered an opportunity in the market to define an experience around freedom and self-expression for Coca-Cola and inside the walls of thousands of food-service partners.

We developed the Freestyle brand as a manifestation of this experience, and the Pure Pour ingredient brand established a new platform with the potential to extend into multiple forms and channels.

The Outcome

Freestyle is in our humble opinion the most transformational digital innovation ever created by a consumer products company. By combining micro-dosing technology from dialysis machines, a new flavor component system akin to to ink jet cartridges, a delightful user interface and a feed of real time consumption data back to headquarters, it solves consumers’ thirst for variety and personalization, eases operations for food service companies, and gives the company insights about shifts in consumer tastes long before their competition can taste them. At last count, over 50,000 of the machines have been deployed, pouring out about 20 million servings a day.

Within the Capgemini family, we developed the value proposition, brand, and go-to-market strategy. The Freestyle network now consists of 19,000 machines in 10,000 locations around the world. Restaurant partners are enjoying increased visitation rates and a simpler operational platform, and Coca-Cola benefits from a 30% increase in equipment leasing and a nationwide testing platform for new product formulations. To this day, we manage the on-going development of the platform including BI, analytics, engineering, and testing.