What’s your Coke Freestyle opportunity?

My dad talks about going to the drug store when he was a kid, taking a seat at the soda fountain, and asking for a “Zombie.”  It was a carbonated drink with a pump from each of the soda flavors.  Frankly that sounds terrible to me, but he loved it.

You can approximately recreate that experience at many convenience stores and fast food restaurants that allow you to pour your own soft drinks.  Instead of just one flavor, why not take a little of each?

And then there’s the Coke Freestyle machines.  One self-service machine with more than 100 separate beverage choices.

I love those little machines, particularly because they’re the only place I know of that can get me diet strawberry soda anymore (oh the memories of childhood…).

But with 100+ different syrups sitting inside that machine, why couldn’t a particular store or restaurant brand come up with its own unique, signature drink?  A custom mix of syrups/flavors that’s different, that’s difficult and next to impossible to get elsewhere, that reflect the brand ,and that draws new customers and increases visits from existing fans?

Same machine, same syrup and carbonated water, brand new product.

You may not sell soda, but what’s on your shelf that could be repurposed into something unique, something new, something exciting, something buzzworthy?

How many old blog posts need dusting off, given a fresh coat of paint, and repurposed into an e-book or paperback book for your next trade show?

Which unused features could be repackaged into something new, something relevant?

Which lightly used products could now be sold online, or via channel partners, to minimize distribution and sales costs but increase both revenue and margin?

In other words, what assets do you have on the shelf that could become the key to increasing sales and profitability just by better leveraging what you already have, what you’ve already built, what you’ve already shipped?