My Coke Rewards

There has always been a rolling might to Coca Cola marketing and they are now stealing a march with the My Coke Rewards loyalty program as well. The enormous success of the program (see Promo) has created an equivalently enormous data store chock full of useful information. In awarding it the 2007 Interactive Marketing Award for "Best Loyalty Marketing,” Promo.com also noted that Coke has unleashed advanced technology to exploit this new information.

"Coke has invested in the collection and mining of consumer information. This data is already fueling customization on the site, and is also being used for e-mail and mobile promotions and other types of communication."

Coke is using Enterprise Decision Management (EDM) software with its new data store to automate operational decisions concerning promotional activities. Radan and Taylor (2008, ¶ 3) describe EDM as a new approach, that integrates Business Intelligence data analysis with business processes, combining operational and analytical processing. This is in contrast to the separation of data from business process inherent in data warehousing.

EDM is avant-garde and Coke is being applauded for its vision and mastery (see EDM Blog). Taylor (2007, ¶ 2) notes that data generated from loyalty programs can be infused with energy from an EDM “to improve marketing, store-layout and many other decisions.” One example he gives is its application to decide what rewards or rebates actually result in a change in customer behavior.

References
Radan, N. and J. Taylor (June 2008). Enterprise decision management uses BI to power up operational systems. Teradata Magazine. Retrieved on September 3, 2008 at (http://www.teradata.com/tdmo/v08n02/Viewpoints/EnterpriseView/Choices.aspx

Taylor, J (July 26, 2007). Growing your business with decision management. Retrieved on September 3, 2008 at http://edm.findtechblogs.com/default.asp?item=656748