To support growth objectives in a changing consumer landscape, Coca-Cola needed to examine new business opportunities. Vivaldi partnered with Coca-Cola to assess the needs of consumers and analyze consumers’ relationships to health and wellness.
To prepare the brand for future expansion, Coca-Cola had to identify clear opportunities for innovation beyond strict category definitions. It was also crucial for Coca-Cola to gain an understanding of the consumer segmentation and targeting needed to cater to shifting consumer preferences.
Our strategic collaboration delivered insights to develop a larger innovation platform, and creating 25 fully-formed product concepts. Vivaldi armed Coca-Cola with a deeper knowledge of current and potential customers and a launch plan to bring a new consumer product to market.
What happens when one of the world’s most recognizable brands wants to explore something completely new? For Coca-Cola, the global brand valued at over $74 billion, their desire was to more deeply connect with consumers and address some of their previously unmet needs. The company engaged Vivaldi to assess the real needs of consumers across five different markets worldwide and to analyze key shifts in consumers’ relationships to health and wellness.
The Vivaldi team worked methodically through five phases, beginning with cultural trends mapping and social analysis. Leveraging research and engaging with anthropologists, the team categorized broad cultural shifts and identified macro trends and category manifestations to show how these trends come to life in each of the local markets through new products and offerings. Through a highly interactive and facilitated session, Vivaldi walked the Coca-Cola cross-functional team through the cultural shifts and as a group interrogated the importance of each across a number of dimensions. The output of the discussion was not just what trends matter, but rather the consequence of the prioritized trends coming together and the new cultural planning platform that arises. 
In parallel to the trends analysis, the Vivaldi team conducted a global quantitative survey to identify key growth platforms and potential opportunities. To more fully understand and articulate the similarities and differences of the five different markets and consumers, a qualitative deep dive was conducted, with in-depth interviews providing a fuller contextual understanding of consumer needs. This phase was especially important to paint a genuine portrait of what people were really longing for and to give an authentic voice to the customer.
From there, the cultural trends analysis and quantitative and qualitative research were used to develop innovation platforms for ideation. Through a number of ideation sessions with key Coca-Cola stakeholders from across markets and functions, 25 product concepts were developed. Each concept was designed, translated and adjusted for specific markets and in the final phase, focus groups were conducted to analyze the new concepts, packaging, and messaging and to determine which could perform the best in-market.
At the conclusion of the process, a week-long work session was held to develop a one-year plan to launch a brand new consumer product into market. Vivaldi’s thorough processes illuminated the beverage behemoth’s understanding of its audiences, bringing it closer to current and potential customers.
