Coca-Cola
Introducing Freestyle.
Although Coca Cola released Freestyle in 2009, it wasn’t until 2011 and 2012 that it was being placed in thousands of Moe’s, Burger Kings, Five Guys, Wendy’s, Royal Caribbean ships and many more locations utilizing this interactive drink dispensing machine. My first encounter with Freestyle was in Summer 2012 when I was a freshman at Florida State, eating lunch in our campus dining hall, Suwannee. I remember being amazed at how one machine can offer more than 140 flavors to a customer. This machine not only gave customers the choice and freedom of designing a beverage, but it allowed Coca-Cola to research what consumers wanted. The flavor combinations created through Freestyle could be the next popular flavor within the beverage industry and it was now being created by the consumers. The market research and data collection provided from the Freestyle machines gives Coca-Cola a greater insight into what consumers crave.
Jennifer Mann, Vice President and General Manager of Coca-Cola Freestyle said “Freestyle is a game-changer.” Coca-Cola recently decided to sell Fanta Cherry at retail after it became popular on Freestyle (Horovitz). The top sellers on Freestyle are Diet Coke with Raspberry, Coke with Orange and Diet Seagram's Ginger Ale with Vanilla. These are flavors not yet available at retail, yet there are currently 19,000 machines in about 10,500 locations globally offering these flavors (Horovitz).
Jennifer Mann, Vice President and General Manager of Coca-Cola Freestyle said “Freestyle is a game-changer.” Coca-Cola recently decided to sell Fanta Cherry at retail after it became popular on Freestyle (Horovitz). The top sellers on Freestyle are Diet Coke with Raspberry, Coke with Orange and Diet Seagram's Ginger Ale with Vanilla. These are flavors not yet available at retail, yet there are currently 19,000 machines in about 10,500 locations globally offering these flavors (Horovitz).
The initial appeal of the freestyle machine is its interactive touch display and the fun appeal of designing your own drink. The appeal that keeps consumers returning to use Freestyle is the personalization of the machine. Customers not only can create their own beverage, but Freestyle is integrated with social medias like Twitter and Facebook. When a consumer is craving their unique beverage, they can enter their zip code to discover the nearest machine (Winzelberg). As if this weren’t enough, the Freestyle app allows customers to create their beverage on their phone, and when near the machine, Freestyle detects the app and creates the drink for the customer.
What Coca-Cola has done with Freestyle is revitalize the falling sales of the beverage industry via mass customization. Customers can interact with Freestyle and feel as if an entire corporation created a beverage just for them. Now that’s using mass customization to a corporation’s advantage while serving the consumer.
What Coca-Cola has done with Freestyle is revitalize the falling sales of the beverage industry via mass customization. Customers can interact with Freestyle and feel as if an entire corporation created a beverage just for them. Now that’s using mass customization to a corporation’s advantage while serving the consumer.