Coca Cola Challenge: BOOM

We are Alike team. While participating in the Start-up Lab, we accepted the Coca Cola challenge. What the company really wanted was to create an app, powered by Coca Cola, which doesn’t advertise the product directly, but in a subtler way. The target group is 13–19 and the values that we tried to promote were three: Awareness, Live, Love. We chose this project because we find the aimed group challenging and interesting, as we still feel close to them and we can possibly understand their needs and problems.

To solve the problems that our fellow team member referred to at her post (you can find her post here:) we had some ideas. The steps that we followed to reach the solution are these:
Step 1. Brainstorming
As we were recently part of this target group, we realized that going out, communicating with peers and discovering new ways of entertainment are some of the main problems that teens face. So, we are more than interested in finding an innovative way to make them feel more involved and comfortable. After a lot of discussion, we ended up that youngsters are using the internet more than ever and an app would be suitable and easy for them to use.
Step 2. App description
The app is about the creation of a virtual world, in which teenagers will be able to design their own characters and gain points (XP) from every activity they participate in. More specifically, each age group (13–16, 16–19) will upload photos of the places they go to and pin their location. There will be categories of entertainment and depending on the users’ choices, they will gain points on a scale from 1 to 10 as to upgrade. Users will choose their age group, and then will only interact with users from the same group. The app will suggest places, events or activities considering their preferences or what they have not done yet. The user can add friends and create a community. Users in the same community can exchange ideas in order to gain points. When users, who are Boom-friends, meet each other in the same place, they gain extra points, that are double of their location’s points.
An important part of the game are the rewards. For every 50 points XP, a discount is given to the user. For example, for the first 50 XP, the user receives a 10% discount for a Mac-meal with a cheeseburger, fries and a Coca-Cola beverage. For 100 XP, the user receives a 1+1 Whiskey-Cola drinks. Note: The gifts vary from one group to the other, as to suit their needs.

XP Scale:
1 XP = Walk
2 XP = Coffee — Food — Bars — Clubs
3 XP = Gym (Bike-Dancing-Swimming-Skate-Rollers)
4 XP = Bowling — Board Games — Video Games
5 XP = Museum — Expositions (Art-Cars etc.)
6 XP = Cinema — Theatre
7 XP = Concerts — Live Stages — Karaoke
8 XP = Extreme Sports (parental guidance if needed)
9 XP = Trips to another city or country
10 XP = COMBO-BOOM

Step 3. Ideal User
A. Group 13–16
Maya, 14 years old

Maya creates a BOOM-profile. She designs her BOOM-moji, as to resemble her appearance. She fills out her personal data. She now is a BOOM-user.
It’s April 13th. Maya decides to grab a coffee with her friend Nicole, who is also a BOOM-user, at their local Starbucks store. She gains 2 points for going out for coffee and doubles her score for being with another BOOM-user. She now has a total of 4 points.
The next day she attends a concert, gaining 7 points. Her company at the concert haven’t been registered at BOOM, so there is no double score for Maya this day.
Maya likes this game, as it motivates her to go out with friends and have fun, as to gain points and upgrade to the game.

B. Group 16–19
Peter, 17 years old

Peter creates his BOOM-profile.
He has now collected 44 XP points by the activities he has done and the places he has been to. He only needs 6 XP in order to get the Mc Donalds discount. So, he goes to the cinema and watches a movie. He receives the 6 points and now he has a total of 50 XP. The discount appears on his screen and allows him to spend it now or save it for later. The discount comes with a code that allows him to get the gift.

Step 4. Solution
Via the app, we try to give alternatives to teenagers in order to solve some of the problems they face. The discounts and the gifts will motivate them to continue playing the game and be interested in gaining points as to be cool and exchange opinions with their friends. They will also discover new places to go, which will allow them to escape their comfort zone and create some unforgettable memories with friends, or by themselves. The goal is to make teens interactive, motivate them into going out, having fun, but also, exercising (e.g. riding the bike) and being educated (e.g. museums), because being cool doesn’t only mean having fun, but most importantly, to combine different activities and having plenty of interests.
In that way, we could help a teen with some kind of psychological problem, serious or not, to open up and become more sociable and feel part of a community. Or, for example, if a teen has problems with his family, this is a way of escaping routine and forgetting about the bad th, ings in their life.

To sum up, this project bonded our team more and we gained knowledge that we used in a more practical way during the building of our app. It made us research more so as to understand the needs of teens in order to adjust the app activities and make our final product attractive for them. What we keep in mind is that we should make the teens keep using our app!

Alike Team: Konstantina Nikolatou, Aggeliki Karampela, Edlira Osmena, Ilya Tranoudi

Special Thanks to: Betty Tsakarestou, Katerina Vlassopoulou and Spiros Kapetanakis.