After years of faithful Coca-Cola fans saving up bottle caps for the soda company’s loyalty program, there’s a chance it was all for nothing as those points may become worthless within the next few months.
On July 1, Coca-Cola will officially end its long-beloved loyalty program. Since 2006, loyal fans of the soft drink have been collecting bottle caps with numbers printed inside to collect points for items. The year this loyalty program was launched, there were 4 billion bottle caps imprinted with codes and $50 million in prizes slated to be given out. As a result of these efforts, Coca-Cola’s stock began to rise.
Over the years, loyalty programs have refined themselves to a process where either physically entering codes online or cutting off box tops has become a painful process. Many companies have shifted over to loyalty systems embedded in smartphone apps to help simplify and expedite the process.
After a failed attempt with the My Coke Rewards app, Coca-Cola likely knew it had to rethink its process. Even with this app, customers had to manually enter in bottle cap codes, which still proved to be too much work.
According to Bloomberg, Coca-Cola’s North America director of digital platforms, Ellen Duncan, said, “As our brand portfolio evolves, the company is evolving its loyalty program to ensure it continues to bring innovative and valuable experiences to loyal consumers across all brands.”
While there are no current plans unveiled as of yet for what Coca-Cola plans to do in terms of revamping its loyalty program, it is moving forward with many initiatives in terms of making the company more efficient and digital. As such, diehard fans may want to cash in their bottle caps soon.
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