Author: Tanja Petrović

Innovation Strategy Director @ The Coca Cola Company

How did the pandemic impact your strategies for new products?

Posted on by Tanja Petrović

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Because many of the occasions have changed, we switched more from “away from home” to “at home” consumption – so the atmosphere, the energy, the context of consumption of our brands has changed. When we’re talking about the new product, consumers are more willing to try the new product.

Consumers are definitely in a position where they want to explore new products and try different types of categories.

According to some data in Europe which we have, we know that in, for example, Germany, 72% of total consumers of the age of 16 to 34 are willing to try new exotic flavors – that’s 65% in France and Spain. Among those flavors, they would like to try some of them that they’ve never tried, so they can kind of transform themselves to the areas of the world they are now not able to travel. Knowing that we at Coca-Cola definitely we’re thinking about some exotic flavors that we can offer to our consumers to satisfy that need. COVID-19 also brought the overall health concern – so now consumers are looking at the drinks and foods as a vehicle for better health. Functionalities are getting more traction and that is something that we are paying attention to. The consumers are also looking to support as well – they are interested in immunity, boosting their energy, improving gut health and concentration, managing the mood, and many other products features out that were not so typical prior to COVID-19.

What are the key factors to having successful innovations?

Posted on by Tanja Petrović

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If I’m thinking about the industry in which we operate, there are 2 factors that are the key reasons for success.

  1.  One is – if a small innovator is providing a better or a different quality of a product, service, or a special feature, then they can apply premium positioning and pricing strategy.
  2. On the other side, if they don’t have a better quality of a product or premium pricing, they tend to provide better convenience while shopping or while experiencing and using the product at a better price, which means a lower than the average product price in that category.

Is there something big companies can learn from smaller ones?

Posted on by Tanja Petrović

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Many things. First of all – the agile approach is something that we as a big system could not say was one of our key advantages in the past. We are heavily learning from small companies and are now applying many agile principles in the way we operate. Uncertainty is something that is an everyday situation that small companies are managing.

For us, being big, we were trying to remove uncertainties – but now we are learning how to accept it as a way of doing business and dealing with it each and every day.

Many small companies have a super-efficient and authentic vision and mission with a purpose – which when you are big and with a wide portfolio means you need to cover the needs of a different part of the business so you can not be so focused on the vision and mission. Then there is high engagement internally among the employees and externally, especially with the consumers. Something which they can be really proud of, and we are learning from them and trying to apply consistent interaction with their consumer and basing the business model on that interaction. And finally – alternative channels. Big companies usually tend to go to the mainstream channels to distribute products there, while smaller companies are trying to go the other way around and plug into the alternative channels to build the brand and the product there.

Is there something smaller innovators are leveraging that the big companies are missing?

Posted on by Tanja Petrović

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Small innovators, small disruptors will keep on popping up and teaching all of us important business lessons. We at big companies tend to think big – immediately provide a wide portfolio, go into the big campaigns and cover many touchpoints, wide formats, and occasions.

And the beauty of small companies is exactly the opposite – the beauty and the reason they are so successful is that they are not obsessed with the economy of scale. They are forced to be small for a while and to act niche, but that is the key reason for their success – and there is a lot we at big companies can learn from them! And we are learning each and every day!

There is beauty in the interaction between big and small companies because we are exchanging knowledge and experience

and we are learning from each other because both small and big companies have their pluses that we can all benefit from.