What do you get when you mix Coca-Cola with Google? That’s what Greg Chambers, Coca-Cola’s global group director of digital innovation wondered.
Chambers is keynoting BIA/Kelsey’s LOCAL IMPACT Atlanta conference on October 12th. He will share insights of the journey from idea to results.
Chambers told BIA/Kelsey that his initiative’s goal was to bridge the worlds of brand activation, digital ad platforms and localized content in a highly efficient and automated solution. Two major drivers were efficiency and localization. “Coke’s reality is that we’ve been moving from a huge, monolithic entity to a much slimmer world. Coke is getting leaner with a smaller headcount.
In this move, we see that we need to operate at the local level, it’s 100 times more important,” Chambers said. Chambers’ team worked with Google to develop an ecosystem with enabling protocols to link Coke’s in-store endcaps with HDMI displays to Doubleclick and other ad exchanges. The results is that Coca-Cola can now put end-caps (digital signage at the end of grocery store aisles) in real-time.
Coca-Cola’s new system is plug-and-play using a combination of Google Cloud technologies that works on any HDMI-ready display, not just end-caps. This includes restaurant menu boards, interactive cinema posters.
According to Chambers, this allows Coca-Cola to deliver, “branded video, e-coupons and more through a digital signage system that tailors content messaging to approaching shoppers based on data on their smartphones.”
The system uses proximity technology (Google’s Eddystone wireless beacon technology) to localize contextually relevant content in real-time, according to Chambers. “We need localized content, or it’s stupid,” he said.
Chambers will share a behind-the-scenes look at this project from the initial idea to how it’s evolved into results. And Chambers is not done innovating. “Look for a ton of announcements from Coke regarding ‘local’ and the IoT beginning in November,” Chambers teased.
We’re hopeful he’ll give BIA/Kelsey’s LOCAL IMPACT Atlanta attendees an early peek into what’s coming up on his local radar. It should be fascinating. Chambers is definitely, “the real thing.”
