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The Coca-Cola Ritual: Mixing ConsumersCreativity and Innovation BegoaFafian,VctorHuertas ESOMAR Innovate, Barcelona, November 2010
OBJECTIVES
In 2007, Coca-Cola Spain set the objective of finding a new way of being relevant in the out-of-home adult leisure occasions. Towards this end, a project was developed to search for new Coca-Cola rituals that: 1. Reposition the brand in the adult sector; 2. Establish a link between the brand and social connection moments of the target; 3. Generate an increase in consumption. This project was undertaken while reducing to a maximum the risks derived from beginning new consumption rituals.
APPROXIMATION
Before designing the methodology for this project, we began a reflection process about how to focus upon it. We decided to establish various work hypotheses that would define how we should face this challenge: 1. We wanted to find new uses for our product, Coca-Cola, and not a new product. 2. To investigate the degree of acceptance in new consumption rituals, determined by:
characteristics of the bars and cafeterias (habitat, area within a city, offer, region, staff); innovation degree of the consumer (innovators, trendsetters, early adopters); consumption moments (weekdays, Monday to Friday pinchos, weekend appetizer, after-work, before-dinner); organoleptic characteristics (mixed drinks, Coca-Cola with something else); socializing capacity (one mixed drink or ritual, with or without alcohol).
Therefore, we first set out to observe what the consumer was already doing spontaneously and freely when having something
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at a bar. Perhaps from here we would have a solid starting point to initiate the next phase. We were clear about opening a creative process where our product became the principal ingredient, but we realized this process should be developed by our clients and our consumers. Why not give them an idea-creative role instead of simply making them evaluate given ideas? In order to obtain better results, we decided to involve consumers and our most innovative clients in the process, having a greater creative capacity and resulting in a better acceptance of new market initiatives. Lastly, we wanted to go through a validation process where we could contrast all hypotheses mentioned above. Towards this end, we thought about a series of pilot experiences in bars, giving waiters the role of "interviewers". We were beginning a trip knowing its beginning, but not knowing where it would take us.
APPROACH
We could now design the methodology to develop the project under the premises defined by the previous reflective process. Figure 1 illustrates how we defined the following phrases and tools to be used in each: FIGURE 1 WORK DIAGRAM
Taking special care in the casting of the people involved was fundamental through all its phases, as was the selection of places where the ethnographic observations would take place, the creativity workshops and the pilots. The following section describes this process in detail in each of its phases.
socialization.
The following tools were utilized: Desk study To have a general vision of the channel characteristics we consulted existing information from previous studies carried out by Coca-Cola, as well as other investigations and sector census studies carried out in Spain and other countries, realizing:
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what the bars were like: general characteristics of the establishments according to certain criteria, business differentiation depending on its location (office area, commercial) and the vocational or professional character of the bar promoters;
what the bar offer was like: pre-existing rituals, consumption times of Coca-Cola in comparison to other alternatives such as beer, wine or vermouth, geographic determination of the offer, most popular tapas, moments of most consumption;
what the client was like: bar analysis according to its clients lifestyles, determination of the channel directed to the most innovative consumers.
Ethnographic observation in bars To go deeper into aspects related to the degree of innovation of bars and clients, consumer behaviour, habits and moments of consumption and socialization (beliefs, perceptions, motivations), we carried out a wide ethnographic observation. We wanted to see and discover, learn and understand what happens everyday when someone orders something in a bar in Spain. We visited 20 bars in Madrid (nine), Barcelona (seven), Valencia (two) and Salamanca (two). The four cities were chosen for being the most innovative in Horeca offer in Spain, contrasting habitat sizes, regional and atmospheric peculiarities. In each city bars were selected for being directed to open-minded consumers receptive to innovation. They were establishments with a different offer than the rest, a well-cared for atmosphere and an owner or manager with a different vision of business. We grouped these bars in two blocks:
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"Reinvention of tradition" (RT): traditional bars that maintained their essence, reinventing themselves and attracting a more innovative crowd;
"New Concepts" (NC): new concept bars that offer important sector innovations in their city..
Ethnographic observations were carried out during a week in each selected establishment. They were visited weekly and on weekends. During the period of appetizers-lunch and afternoon- pre-dinner, we observed what went at each different moment: local climate, behaviour, interrelations, roles, prescriptions, ways of consumption, product uses, tapas, gestures, mixes anything that informed us about where we were and what the people were spontaneously doing. We took notes and photographed everything we saw. We also carried out small interviews with consumers and waiters. Consumer diaries Together with bar observations, we selected 25 innovative consumers in Spain. We chose them through a personal interview where we determined their tendency towards innovation and their diffusion capacity of new things in different atmospheres, that is, their trendsetting skills. The people invited resided in Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Salamanca, Bilbao and Malaga. Through the same selection method we included another 10 people who lived outside Spain: Germany, France, Italy, United
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Kingdom, United States, Brazil and Argentina. These countries were chosen due to certain organoleptic similarities with the Spanish market and their great potential in consumption tendencies diffusion. During a week, we asked what relationship they had with the bars, including all the audiovisual material they thought would enrich their discourse. These diaries widened the collective vision of the situation we were getting at. Tendencies analysis To complete this, we enriched the information about the actual situation, obtained with the previous three tools, with an analysis of social and consumption tendencies. The idea was adding information about how the consumer and the market would evolve in the near future, to the knowledge diagnostic. We would then be able to inject the most important tendencies, as an additional stimulus into the creative phase, and align all resulting ideas with future demands. For this we had access to a permanent tendencies observatory that connected dozens of people with a high level of prescription for new trends. These people were carefully chosen in different cities such as Madrid, Barcelona, Seville, Palma, New York, Paris, London, Berlin, Tokyo, Buenos Aires. Principal conclusions The principal things we learned from this first phase were:
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Generally there was little imagination in consuming Coca-Cola, both relative to the product as to its moments and ways of consumption during the appetizer-lunch and afternoon-pre-dinner periods, especially because there was only one way of serving it (the one established long ago) and consumers rejected changing this ritual: glass with ice and a slice of lemon.
Coca-Cola appeared as a closed and final product. It did not suggest being another ingredient in a game of drink combinations.
We observed little election possibilities in the appetizer or afternoon period and it seemed to carry out a very functional role associated to the consumption routine.
Additionally, we took into account three tendencies we thought very relevant in the development of this process:
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"Longing for the authentic": there are values and brands that are ageless and connect emotionally with people, transmitting security and authenticity. Coca-Cola is one of those brands, just like Levis or Vespa, brands that are a part of consumerslives.
"Experience accumulation": people will be more demanding in their search for experimentation. Brands will be judged by the experiences they offer more than by their products. We are facing a process were people will demand more intelligent experimentation, learning, having fun and being surprised.
"NU-modesty": this tendency can be observed around us constantly: any anonymous person can express himself and show the rest of the world with the clickof a mouse through democratic technology (YouTube, blogs, graffiti). Interconnection and interactivity become essential characteristics and creativity becomes a motor for many of these personal expressions.
We were now ready to confront the next phase of our journey. We had an important challenge ahead of us and few difficulties,
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which we had already located, and which we knew we could easily overcome.
a live product, open to being mixed and played with; more adult drinks that projected a different visual and organoleptic experience; something to order at a bar for different moments and crowds.
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Two fundamental concepts to be taken into account through the rest of the process came up: Versatility and Simplicity. The versatility of Coca-Cola as a principal ingredient of something that was not a cocktail or a mixed drink Coca-Cola with a touch of something else: juice, alcohol, fruit; and simplicity, as a fundamental requisite to be prepared by a bartender at any bar ordered by any consumer at any given moment. Workshops with creative barmen and bartenders Helping ourselves with what we learned, the ingredients and the gestures we discovered after the workshop with the experts, we prepared two workshops with waiters and young bartenders. We selected them out of the most innovative bars in Madrid and Barcelona (always within the two defined groups: Reinvention of tradition and New Concepts). We gave the eight people who participated in each workshop a creative brief and some time to play around with the product. In said brief, we reviewed everything to be taken into account as a stimulus for their creative process. The two workshops were carried out in bars (not in work-rooms) where we had space, ingredients, glasses and the atmosphere needed to create and share creations. We observed and questioned whatever caught our attention, without monitoring the group. We wanted it to be like an experimental meeting of young creators sharing and learning from their ideas. The results of both workshops were very similar in regards to the axes of taste and ritualizations obtained. We now had various drinks with a Coca-Cola basis simple in preparation and versatile in their formulation. New rituals of preparation that guaranteed a new world for our product and its bar-life emerged. Optimizer with trendsetter consumers To end this creative phase we were missing a very important part. Studying the consumerscreativity and comparing the ideas arisen in the workshops with experts in a first phase, and waiters and young bartenders in a second phase. We organised four workshops with eight consumers which were once more selected for their personal incline towards innovation. We carried them out in four cities: Madrid, Barcelona, Bilbao and Sevilla. They were done in closed bars, conducted by a technician accompanied by a bartender or a waiter (who had participated in previous workshops), who prepared drinks and modifications consumers created in the same workshop. These workshops had three different parts: 1. Exploring phase to set the rules and confirm insights; 2. Creative phase through stimuli: ingredients and taste axes; 3. Comparative phase and idea optimization: ideas generated at the workshop plus those created by bartenders and waiters. Workshops were carried out in two shifts. The first day both were done simultaneously, the same ideas and concepts were presented for validation and optimizing. Immediately after we had an analysis reunion to improve ideas and present their evolution in the same two workshops, which were also done on the same day.
Our creative phase had ended. We simply needed the validation at the bar to obtain the definitive results for this project. We would now like to make a short break in our work. We thought it would be helpful to invite two of our participants to tell us briefly about their experience. This is who they are and what they told us:
THE EXPERIENCE
The consumer "My name is Ruben, Im30yearsoldandIliveintheMalasaaneighbourhoodinMadrid.MyfriendssayIm a hipster, maybe because of how I dress differently and because I enjoy the music of unknown international bands; and probably because of my job as a freelance illustrator. I think I am a curious and restless person, I want to travel the world and am interested in trends from other countries. I love discovering new places and whenever I can I run away to London where I have a few friends with whom I share plenty hobbies. My life is in constant movement, I write a blog in my spare time, where I talk about what interests me. This is what has made me popular online, and thanks to this, I have received various invitations to undergroundconcerts, showrooms and a few free drinks at hip venues around the city. InApril2007IwascalledfromamarketingagencycalledMtodoHelmer.Theyaskedmeafewquestionsandafewdays later, they asked for my opinion in a "creative workshop"I did not know what I was getting into, but the experience was worth it. I went to a bar in my neighbourhood where I met seven other people (four women and three men) within my age range. The workshop was around two and a half hours long and it was a lot of fun and very entertaining, they gave us the chance to create new drinks with Coca-Cola as a basic ingredient. They let us do whatever we wanted with it, we could mix it with whatever we liked. They helped us with all kinds of juices, fresh ingredients like ginger or lime and even ice cubes with flavours and fruits inside them! ItwaslikeacookinglessonwithFerrnAdri.Veryinterestingmixeddrinkswereinvented,thingsIwouldneverimagineina bar. And they were very easy to make! A bartender prepared various drinks for all of us to try and give our opinion about. I remember that night when I got home, I started thinking. I thought a brand like Coca-Cola never listened to people like me. I was wrong." The waitress "Hello. Im Mireia and I am 34 years old. They asked me to tell you about the workshop I participated in March 2007. At the time I was working as a waitress at the Born bar in Barcelona. I now have my own bar in the same area. One day someone came to the bar and told me he worked for a marketing agency that was carrying out a study about drinks. He asked me a series of questions and invited me to participate in a workshop to create a new drink. I found it interesting and accepted. A few days later he came back and told me what I had to do, and that it should be done with Coca-Cola. He told me I could play with the product all I wanted and gave me a few rules to obtain the result I had to target: three drinks with Coca-Cola as a
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basic ingredient. I was given three weeks for this. I was then called to a bar very close to mine, were I met seven other people that worked at different bars in Barcelona. The workshop was lots of fun, they asked us to explain and prepare the drinks we had thought of. There were many ingredients thrown in: lime ice cubes, a splash of vermouth, a touch of ginger, some drops of angosturaIt was all experimentation and idea exchanging. Sincerely, I never thought Coca-Cola could be such a playful ingredient."
THE RESULTS
The "New ritual" project process enabled consumers to create a new relevant and market proven product (mixer). As a result of this we have encouraged consumer creativity sessions and expert validations in our product development process. The success of the "New ritual" launch in the market in 2009 has lead to a joint venture with Bacardi to expand the ritual in the channels, including a TV commercial. As the research process demonstrated, creating a new ritual that mixes Coke with a "cloud" of Vermouth was the answer to the key objectives we had identified: 1. Reposition the brand in the adult sector. A recipe made withf Vermouth showed a strong potential to compete with adult profile products (like beer and Vermouth), due to a mix of a less sweet profile than plain Coke with a slight alcohol content. 2. Establish a link between the brand and social connection moments of the target. Vermouth is directly associated to aperitifs, which is one of the key daily social moments for adults in Spain. 3. Generate an increase in consumption. Changing adult behaviours and "traditions" is hard. By using a recipe made of Coke and Vermouth the anticipated taste was almost perceived as known, so it offered adults the possibility to try a new way to drink Coca-Cola without risk, breaking a key barrier for the change to happen.
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This was not only proven by research results, but also in reality. Implementing the new ritual in the market has developed into:
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Creation of Chispazo, a new drink providing an alternative way to drink Coke; Supported by an agreement with Bacardi to make it happen; Available in 25,000 Spanish bars 1,100 GRPs on TV to show it.
Initial results will be shared in the presentation Barcelona. We are aware that creating a new ritual is a long journey, but we are pleased to share the news that we are on the right track.
THE AUTHORS
BegoaFafian,TheCoca-Cola Company, Spain. VctorHuertas,MtodoHelmer,Spain.
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