Dive Brief:
- Coca-Cola has acquired 16 million of the unique network identifiers usually used in thing like Wi-Fi cards and similar pieces of networking equipment.
- Coca-Cola has declined to comment on what it hopes to accomplish with the identifiers. The most likely scenario is that Coke intends to connect its vending machines to the so-called Internet of Things—allowing for a more personalized beverage system that makes recommendations based on the previous actions of a credit-card owner.
- Coke has already distributed 2,000 "Freestyle" machines at Burger King restaurants, and is testing Internet-connected vending machines in Texas. Both of these device types are the sorts of locations that could take a unique network identifier.
Dive Insight:
The marketing potential here is extraordinary—though Coke will want to be wary of creeping consumers out. Here's why: A Freestyle machine allows customers to make their own soft drinks by blending Coke products. A new-era vending machine knows what customers have bought in the past. Connect these things together and you wind up in a situation where a guy named Joe can put his card into a machine and get a cup of "Joe soda"—a blend of other drinks that he loves, but that you or I would find repulsive.
Coke could sell billions of Joe sodas to the Joes of the world. And certainly that would be good for Coke. But it would mean that Coke was walking away from the very thing that turned it into an icon: "All the Cokes are the same and all the Cokes are good."