Coca-Cola Sabco (CCS) is the Anchor Bottler for Coca-Cola Southern Africa (CCSA) - based in Port Elizabeth. The Marketing Department had just been set up to: 

• Develop relevant marketing material and promotional activity to Create Demand in the market for new products and formats
• Translate and communicate new product launches and in-store projects developed by CCSA into Bottler relevant activities
• Support the effective functioning of the sales and distribution team at the Bottler

What was needed

1. Creation of a standardised Sales Reporting Format for South Africa, Namibia, Mozambique and Zambia regions
2. Cooler Productivity Project - to optimise cooler space across different channels
3. Management of Coca-Cola launch within Woolworths stores in Port Elizabeth

What we did

1. Sales Reporting Format for South Africa, Namibia, Mozambique and Zambia regions

• Interviewed all key stakeholders to understand what they needed to get from the information
• Processed all information sources and current reporting formats
• Developed an integrated rolling report, used across all 4 regions, that provided a summary of volume and value by month

2. Cooler Productivity Project

• Conducted in-depth analysis of warm vs cold merchandising equipement was being used, by channel and retailer size
• Research on how customers shopped within each of the channels to understand what occasion they were buying the product for e.g. 2L Coke to take to a BBQ or a 330ml can to drink immediately
• Presented final report on recommendations, by channel type, for the use of warm racking as a cheaper form of product display vs the use of fridges within the store

3. Management of Coca-Cola launch within Woolworths stores in Port Elizabeth - as sole contact between Woolworths and CCS, our responsibility was to ensure

• Select and create a store plan for the correct sized fridges within store - including a double-door fridge near front of store and a waist-high single-door fridge placed amongst the chocolate and crisp shelves in the queue-snake at till-points
• Train store merchandisers on Coca-Cola fridge merchandising compliance
• Liaise with Woolworths store managers and CCS distribution staff to maintain a positive stock supply and rotation
• Full report to CCS on project development, successes and next steps