The Coca-Cola Co is bringing innovation back as a key growth driver after severely pruning its portfolio and focusing on supply-chain efficiency during the pandemic, but this time it wants more precision and less complexity.
Rather than return to the sprawling product-development playbook it used before the COVID-19 outbreak, the beverage behemoth is taking a more targeted, local and scalable approach that requires more upfront analysis, but ultimately can reduce complexity and increase the odds of success, new CEO Henrique Braun said during Barclays 19th Annual Global Consumer Conference yesterday.
The approach is designed to create products that resonate with consumers without overly complicating production or supply chains or unnecessarily straining margins, Braun said.
To do this, the company is filtering new product development through what Braun called the “four ‘I’s,” which he said guide the company’s overall strategy and include insights, innovation, intimacy and integration.
The company also is heaping on a hefty dose of digital transformation, which Braun dubbed Coca-Cola’s “next superpower,” to help it identify opportunities, sharpen execution and get closer to consumers.
The four ‘I’s in action
Coca-Cola’s approach to innovation has evolved alongside the changes in consumer behavior brought on by the pandemic.
After the initial coronavirus outbreak and subsequent lockdowns snarled supply chains and distribution, “a lot of companies, including ourselves, pruned our brands,” Braun recalled. “Coke went from 500 to less than 200 brands globally.”
Then, as the company became more effective and efficient in managing its supply chains, and “the consumers started to go out again, innovation became more important to their daily lives,” and they sought new categories, flavors and variation, he said.
“We, being the leaders of the industry, and being close to the consumer, started to also bring innovation accordingly,” he explained.
But, he added, “we have been improving, and a clear focus for us in this next chapter is about leveraging those four ‘I’s that I talked about – insights, innovation, intimacy and integration, all together to be faster at identifying insights and accelerating lift and shift” of successful launches in one area to others.
The innovations that are accretive to the portfolio without adding complexity are the ones that can grow from a local market to a global platform, he explained.
For example, the company’s limited edition Sprite+Tea was inspired by social media, and after testing it in the US market in the back half of 2025, Coca-Cola “lifted and shifted it to China, which is a key market for tea,” where it quickly became “one of the highlights of innovation” in the company’s second quarter, Braun said.
Sprite+Tea illustrates how Coca-Cola is trying to turn consumer insights into innovations that can be tested locally and then scaled across markets.
How Coca-Cola decides which innovations to pursue
As part of its product development process, Coca-Cola’s innovation council made of senior company leaders pressure tests each idea.
“The measurement of every data point after launching allows us to identify the ones that are going to have a good path and the ones that are not. When you do that, you actually go from … adding a complexity to adding precision to what the consumer wants,” Braun explained.
This level of attention to detail is important because building a $1 billion brand takes at least 10 years, according to Braun. As such, making post-launch measurements and decisions where to invest are critical.
Another example is how the company redesigned Mr Pibb in the US to bring a “more bold cherry flavor with a tad increase in caffeine levels” to give consumers more flavor and function, he said.
The company also is using consumer insights to identify new occasions for existing products. In Europe, research showing that consumers’ caffeine consumption changes throughout the day helped prompt a repositioning of Coca-Cola Zero Sugar Zero Caffeine as an evening drink. Rather than the product changes Braun described for Mr. Pibb, the Zero Caffeine effort focused on repositioning and packaging, including a black-and-gold design intended to give the product a more premium, evening-oriented identity.
Together, the examples show the range of what Braun means by more “precision:” sometimes changing the product itself to meet a specific consumer preference, and sometimes changing how an existing product is positioned and presented for a particular occasion.
Digital tools sharpen Coca-Cola’s innovation execution
Coca-Cola’s push for greater precision extends beyond product development to include the company’s use of digital tools, data and artificial intelligence to sharpen how it interacts with its partners and consumers.
Braun called digital Coca-Cola’s “next superpower,” but said the company’s goal is not to reinvent the business through technology. Instead, it is using digital capabilities to “do better what we already do best.”
The company already has a strong track record of endearing its brands to consumers through emotionally and culturally relevant marketing, but, Braun said, Coca-Cola is using AI and other digital tools to augment its capabilities.
For example, its Fanta Halloween campaign used QR codes on cans to connect consumers with content, rewards and transactions, while generating first-party consumer data for the company.
The company also is trying to embed digital capabilities throughout the organization rather than isolate them within a technology function. To help, it recently appointed a chief digital officer who will report directly to Braun.
The role, Braun said, is intended to “galvanize” the company’s existing digital activities and help embed digital capabilities across the business, rather than centralize them in one function.
He added: “It is a big job.”
