Top 25 eCommerce leaders 2022: Sam Way

Sam Way (pictured), the head of offline to online (O2O) for the ASEAN and South Pacific operating unit at Coca-Cola, has earned his stripes not just for his knowledge in the space, but also for his ability to work with cross-functional teams for the best results.

Based in Singapore, Way serves on the regional leadership team for Coca-Cola, and along with his team, drives its online to offline agenda across the diverse and dynamic regions of ASEAN and the South Pacific. His focus at Coca-Cola over the past three years has been to build, foster and lead his high-performing team to drive the company’s digital transformation and eCommerce strategy across the region. Heading the team, his contributions are two-fold: he proudly focuses on business to consumer, and business to business.

When it comes to his business to consumer vertical – the company’s largest vertical – he is focused on forging deeper connections with online consumers, as well as partnering with Coca-Cola’s bottler sales teams. On the business to business side, Way is focused on building experiences and deeper connections with the brand’s online customers in order to drive brand value and growth as well as to leverage owned and third-party platforms to expand his brand’s portfolio presence, and to drive frequency of purchase.

Speaking about Coca-Cola’s O2O journey, he said the function is still a relatively new one with a new team within the organisation. “In 2021, O2O was set up on a provocation that if we don’t fundamentally shift from a successful – and predominantly offline business – to a nimble and innovative online business, we won’t continue to enjoy the same successes as we’ve had in the past,” he said. Putting words into action, he and his team set the wheels in motion by developing the digital commerce offering and integrating it with Coca-Cola’s presence offline.

Meanwhile, some of his team’s significant contributions in 2022, noted by the industry, included his campaign with e-retail platform RedMart, and partnership with superapp Grab.

For RedMart, the brand’s Chinese New Year campaign saw it capture festive sales early, as well as increasing its basket size to a larger 24 multi-pack to cater for the increase in demand. Partnering with Grab, Way and his team drove the increase of Coke beverages so that more meals were paired with the soft drink in combos. It also introduced a gamified campaign in which Grab and Coca-Cola rewarded consumers for purchasing Coke combos to drive repeat purchases.

Ever the believer in collaboration, Way’s Singapore and Malaysia team leveraged their newly established partnership with KFC and Pizza Hut to drive recruitment and online delivery growth for their new partner merchants, in partnership with FSA platforms such as GrabFood and foodpanda. Through the partnership, consumers could get more Coke with meal combo deals across all outlets, increasing Coke beverage incidence as well. The campaign saw a whopping increase in the number of new online shoppers for Coke, KFC, and Pizza Hut and ad-generated sales.

Way’s dedication and capabilities have seen him exponentially expand his connections with online consumers and customers as well as increase online attachment rates, and an online presence.