Its Web-based design tool lets the beverage giant customize marketing

for hundreds of brands globally while slashing the time it takes to reach consumers walk into any grocery or convenience store and you’re likely to see big sales signs tied to events—say, an Olympic-themed sign promoting a series of limited edition Coca-Cola (KO) cans that were available during the Beijing Summer Games. In the past 12 months, Coca-Cola Enterprises, the biggest bottler and distributor of Coke products in the U.S., has created 700,000 of these customized point-of-sale materials alone and expects to pump out 50% more in the next year.

Just five years ago a team of people might have spent weeks or months producing each in-store display. Today, all it takes is Steve Vande Loo and his office computer. Sitting at his desk, the vice-president of commercialization strategy for Atlanta-based Coca-Cola Enterprises (CCE) logs into the Design Machine, a Web site launched by Coca-Cola last year.

Vande Loo searches online for the right layout template, customizes the images and the copy, choosing from the seven language options currently available, and forwards the digital file to a Coca-Cola printing facility which will get it into stores within days. He can knock off a new sign in less than 10 minutes.

Source [ BusinessWeek ]

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