In the age of the empowered consumer, even long-standing relationships like this one could be at risk if someone is not delivering what the consumer wants. I'm sure that both Coke and Pepsi are watching this test pretty closely -- but you should all be watching! Are you giving your partners what their audience needs?
The dinner rush is on, and counter clerks at a McDonald's near Texas A&M University fill paper bags with cheeseburgers and hot french fries for slap-happy students in the throes of exams.Every once in a while, instead of filling a cup with ice and a stream of fizzy Coke, the clerks reach into a cooler case and hand over something customers in only a few McDonald's around the world can get — a Pepsi-made Mountain Dew.
A quiet little test project in College Station and metro Kansas City is threatening Coca-Cola's more than 50-year-old monogamous relationship with McDonald's. For nine months, the fast-food giant has experimented with bottled drinks as it tries to win back revenue from burger-buying customers who get their bottle of pop from a convenience store next door. It also wants to keep customers who prefer energy and sports drinks to carbonated soft drinks.
The test includes popular drinks made by Coke and its archrival, PepsiCo, an unsettling reality for executives 800 miles away at Coke headquarters in Atlanta. Coke has had exclusive pouring rights at McDonald's since the chain's founding in 1955.
The test project represents a crack in the wall Coke has built around the burger company.
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