Can Coke Lure Germans With GetHappy?

After operating in Germany for 86 years, Coca-Cola has become something of a cultural touchstone in the country. A few hours after the Berlin Wall fell in 1989, red Coke trucks greeted citizens streaming in from the East. Coke has been a longtime sponsor of the country’s Bundesliga soccer league and supported last year’s World Cup champion national team. Now the iconic brand thinks it’s discovered another way to get German consumers to buy its fizzy drinks: an app to make it easier to order takeout or delivery from the neighborhood cafe or falafel shop.

Coca-Cola Erfrischungsgetränke, the company’s $2.35 billion German bottler and distributor, will start arming small restaurants and bakeries in more than 10 German cities with Coke’s “GetHappy” smartphone and tablet app, allowing their owners to better compete with larger, tech-savvy establishments. Restaurants can put menus online by keying in their information and prices or sending them to Coca-Cola to have them digitized for a fee. Eateries will pay Coke about $22 a month plus a percentage of sales for the ability to take digital orders for pickup and delivery, and reservations. Using technology from Salesforce.com, an earlier version of the app already lets Coke-carrying restaurants offer customers simple-to-manage digital loyalty card programs.