Coca-Cola’s National Foodservice’s PACT System

A centralized system enabling Coca-Cola’s National Foodservice (NFS) marketers to efficiently organize, track, and distribute promotional assets across hundreds of locations nationwide.

Project Overview

The NFS team relied on spreadsheets with scattered links and inconsistent naming conventions. This caused inefficiency, asset duplication, outdated materials, limited visibility for leadership, and wasted resources as teams struggled to locate and utilize existing materials.

Goal: Streamline marketing asset tracking, ensure brand consistency, and reduce time wasted on asset retrieval and redundant asset creation.

Solution: Designed and implemented a centralized digital asset management system with robust search/filtering, version control, and metadata standards. Introduced clear naming conventions, seamless integration with marketing tools, and team training.

Results: Increased efficiency in asset retrieval, improved brand consistency across campaigns, and reduced redundant asset creation.

  • 95% of team members reported improved workflow efficiency.

  • 60% faster asset retrieval.

  • 40% reduction in redundant asset creation.

  • Leadership gained real-time visibility into promotions and campaigns.

My Role: Led the implementation of the proprietary system, facilitated research workshops, defined best practices, and oversaw design validation.

Audience: NFS marketing teams (regional and national) and leadership stakeholders responsible for campaign oversight and brand consistency.

Timeline: 2016 - 2017

Discovery

In this phase, we uncovered the true scope of inefficiencies and identified user needs through research and workshops.

  • 10 stakeholder interviews (5 regional marketers, 3 national marketers, 2 leadership members).

  • Asset analysis of existing spreadsheets and shared folders.

  • Collaborative workshops to surface pain points and goals.

Key Findings:

  • Leadership required a quick, visual overview of campaigns.

  • Marketers needed intuitive, incremental input methods to update campaign details.

  • Teams sought advanced filtering and search for locating specific assets.

  • The spreadsheet system was universally disliked and considered inefficient.

Unexpected Insight: Leadership and marketers had conflicting needs—high-level dashboards vs. detailed campaign entry. The final design reconciled these priorities.

Constraints: Security and licensing requirements ruled out third-party SaaS tools, leading to a proprietary solution.

Define

We synthesized findings into clear personas, problem statements, and success metrics to guide solution development.

Personas:

  • Leadership (Strategic Overseer): Needs at-a-glance dashboards to track national trends.

  • Marketer (Regional Executor): Needs efficient upload, search, and campaign tracking tools.

Problem Statement: “How might we create a centralized, secure, and intuitive system that balances leadership’s need for oversight with marketers’ need for efficiency in campaign tracking?”

Artifacts (Design Documentation)::

  • Journey maps: Comparing “Spreadsheet Workflow” vs. “Centralized System Workflow.”

  • Prioritized feature list: Centralized repository, metadata-driven search, version control, dashboarding, tool integration.

Success Metrics: Efficiency (time saved), consistency (reduced duplication), and satisfaction (team-reported usability).

Design

We iterated on prototypes, applied UX principles, and validated functionality with end users. Our process was simple:

  • Built low-fidelity wireframes of repository and dashboard views.

  • Iteratively tested clickable prototypes with participants across roles.

  • Gathered feedback on usability, labeling, and search/filter interactions.

Early testing showed marketers struggled with filtering. We added pre-set filters for “campaign type” and “region,” and applied guiding design principles to shape the MVP for clarity, scalability, and alignment across user groups.

  • Discoverability: Clear labeling, metadata tagging, and search cues.

  • Consistency: Standardized naming conventions and version control.

  • Autonomy: Flexible filters and customizable dashboards.

  • Simplicity: Reduced redundant steps, intuitive workflows.

Delivery

This phase focused on implementation, training, and ensuring scalability across regions.

Collaboration: Worked with IT for secure system deployment, trained marketers in metadata practices, and partnered with leadership to configure dashboards.

Implementation Highlights:

  • Central repository with role-based permissions.

  • Integrated dashboards for real-time leadership views.

  • Team training on best practices for asset management.

Scalability: Built architecture flexible enough to expand across future campaign types and regional requirements.

Results

We measured both efficiency gains and broader business outcomes, supported by user feedback.

Quantitative:

  • 95% of team members reported improved efficiency.

  • 60% faster asset retrieval.

  • 40% reduction in duplicate asset creation.

Qualitative:

  • Marketer quote: “I can finally find the assets I need without pinging five different people.”

  • Leadership quote: “The dashboard gives us visibility we never had—we can make faster, better decisions.”

Business Impact:

  • Reduced compliance risks through consistent branding.

  • Saved resources by eliminating redundant asset production.

  • Increased accountability and transparency across campaign execution.

Lessons Learned:

  • Balancing strategic vs. tactical user needs required flexible design.

  • Metadata standards and training were as critical as the technology.