At the 2025 ARF Audience x Science conference in New York, Gabe Gales, Director of Global Media and Communications Effectiveness at The Coca-Cola Company, joined Reach3’s Dara St. Louis, to explore how Coke is rethinking measurement for its most immersive brand moments.
As experiential marketing takes on a more prominent role in the media mix, Coca-Cola has moved beyond traditional surveys and attribution models to embrace more agile, mobile-first research. Working with us, they implemented Brand Experience Predictor (BXP), which is powered by the Rival platform, so they could pre-test, measure, and optimize activations. Gabe said that BXP is “helping us not only understand what works but make fast, informed decisions about how to adapt and improve."
BXP captures feedback across three phases: before the event (pre-testing), during the event (in-the-moment capture), and after the event (post-experience reflection). This approach helps Coca-Cola understand how its activations perform in terms of emotional engagement, intent to share, overall brand impact and more. Feedback is gathered using our conversational approach, which mimics how people naturally communicate, making it more engaging and effective for collecting both quantitative and qualitative insights.
Case studies: Experiential marketing optimization and measurement
Coca-Cola shared several real-world applications of this approach:
Essence Festival of Culture
BXP was used to test consumer expectations in advance of the event, which is the largest Black cultural and music event in the U.S. Then, they gathered live feedback during the activation and conducted follow-ups to understand long-term impact. Insights from the first year helped shape an improved experience in the second year, including expanding the company’s presence.
The Olympics
As a worldwide partner of the Olympics, Coke hosted various experimental activations across the country, including the Torch Relay, commercials, concerts and food festivals. Coca-Cola used BXP during this large-scale program to measure the effectiveness of brand touchpoints such as sampling stations, signage and co-branded experiences. They conducted in-the-moment research and were able to recontact people post-event to see what was most memorable to them about the experience. The feedback helped determine which elements had the greatest influence on behavior and perception, informing future strategy.
Holiday Caravan
Every year, Coke aims to create memorable, joyful experiences that capture the magic of the holidays. For this global event series, Coke used BXP to collect in-the-moment and post-event feedback from attendees. Insights informed decisions on whether or not to expand the tour, where to go and how to improve future activations. BXP was used alongside traditional media trackers to understand how this effort complemented other campaign elements and benefited the bottom line.
Gabe said, “I think the work kind of speaks for itself. We really like the normative views with rankings across our portfolio, across different markets, across different years. It is really beneficial for us to have the flexibility to be on site and to reach people after the fact, before the event to pre-test — all good stuff for us to have. We’re constantly working on iterating and optimizing tools that we use, much in the same way that we optimize our different marketing efforts. Through the power of BXP…we have found a lot of success and we hope to continue that success in the future.”
For a company focused on creating memorable, emotionally resonant experiences, this approach provides both strategic clarity and operational agility. Coca-Cola’s work with BXP reflects a larger shift in how brands are approaching research—one that puts the consumer voice, context, and emotional connection at the center of measurement.
