March 2022: BYO bottle with this experiment from Coca-Cola

*|MC_PREVIEW_TEXT|* Welcome to our latest pretotyping in action. This month, we're spotlighting... Coca-Cola's "Bring Your Own Bottle" Pretotype

Coca-Cola Japan’s experimental new vending machines dispense water when you BYOB (bring your own bottle): ‘customers can wash and fill reusable containers with their choice of sparkling water or hot, warm or cold still water.’ This product is a Provincial and MVP Pretotype, testing the adoption of this product in a specific market (Japan).

What’s working well? What could be better?

Some solutions are too complex to simulate, and while we always advise to ‘test for 0 dollars in 24 hours’, sometimes you need to build the smallest, least scalable solution to test real customer engagement. An easier and much cheaper (and braver!) way to test could be to create a cardboard façade or mockup of the vending machine and measure how many people try and use it — good data for a first pretotype.

What are the takeaways?

There are a few takeaways I'm thinking about from this one: 1. ‘If the trial is successful, the company aims to have 500 machines in use by 2025.’ I’d love to know what “good” looks like for Coke. What’s their XYZ hypothesis for this experiment? What % of people need to use this to scale it out to a broader market? 2. ‘Japan is known for its over-the-top vending machines.’ Culture matters. Would this work in another market? Don’t guess — pretotype it there and see if it checks out. If you have the resources, don’t be afraid to use them to create the best quality and most visible pretotype possible. But, avoid prematurely thinking about scale, marketing, distribution, support, etc., until you have conclusive data that the solution works for solving a customer problem, not only your company goals.

Someone working in an agency asked our Slack community a great question: ‘I've been told, after warning that a new project was destined to fail (based on pretotyping-esque activities), that “sometimes we just need to build what our clients need us to build.” Anyone else facing this existential crisis? Any advice to change my mind on quitting the industry altogether and starting a goat farm?’ This scenario is a real, practical issue we all face each day. I believe that pretotyping gives you the tools to have a more rational, data-driven conversation. We’ve seen this shift in clients. It’s more powerful to say ‘we’ve tested this idea with customers and the data says they have no interest, but we’ve learned x and can explore that to improve the product’ vs. ‘I think this a bad idea’, which puts everyone on defence. It’s hard to argue with experiment outcomes once we trust the method, and when you can hold the line, your agency gets a reputation for building products that customers love. In saying this, I feel your pain re: pushing terrible projects because they make commercial sense. But, sometimes you need to get new customers or join a new agency — or go farming!

‘You save one million dollars each time you DON’T Build something.’

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Until next month, happy innovating! Leslie

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