The news: Coca-Cola and Hershey’s are proving that even century-old brands can move at startup speed without losing their soul by systematizing creativity and innovation. At a recent panel, Coca-Cola’s senior design manager of technology Benny Lee and Hershey’s applied digital innovation manager Andy Hunt explained how they’re retooling their organizations to turn experimentation into an everyday habit.

Innovation as a system, not a slogan: Lee described Coca-Cola’s transformation as less about AI hype and more about structure. The brand realized that its challenge wasn’t inventing new products—it was scaling creative excellence across 200 markets. “If our product can’t change,” Lee said, “we’ll design experiences around it.” That insight led to a rethink of how ideas move through the company.

Coca-Cola built a proprietary creative intelligence system that converts its brand guidelines into machine-readable code. Instead of sending 400-page PDFs to agencies, every design asset now carries a digital style ID—a set of rules that ensures consistency without stifling creativity. The system instantly flags off-brand layouts and can reformat campaigns across regions in seconds.

The result: Fewer bottlenecks, faster iteration, and a culture that prizes making over meetings. For a company with 2.2 billion daily consumer touchpoints, even minor workflow gains create massive impact. Lee called it “the future of brand governance—where AI doesn’t replace creatives, it protects them.”

Building feedback loops, not fireworks: Hunt said Hershey’s 130-year success is built on “moments of goodness,” but sustaining that promise requires constant recalibration. Hershey’s has created an “innovation funnel” that scouts emerging technologies, tests them through pilots, and measures their impact on both operations and consumer sentiment.

“We don’t chase shiny objects,” Hunt said. “We scout, test, scale, and learn.” That cycle extends beyond R&D into marketing, where Hershey’s standardizes KPIs across platforms like Google, Pinterest, and The Trade Desk. Consistent measurement, Hunt explained, allows every team—from creative to retail—to iterate from the same data. “It’s how you make innovation digestible,” he said.

Hershey’s also promotes cultural experimentation by embedding empathy into process design. Programs like Help Enhance, which send office employees to work store floors during key seasons, generate firsthand insights that feed directly into product, packaging, and media decisions. “Understanding the field is part of understanding innovation,” Hunt noted.

Legacy brands, startup rhythms: Both executives see innovation as a daily operating rhythm, not a department. For Coca-Cola, that means using technology to liberate creativity. For Hershey’s, it means turning feedback into fuel. Each approach reflects a larger cultural pivot within legacy CPGs: Speed without recklessness, structure without bureaucracy.

The takeaway for marketers is clear: Innovation can be engineered; in fact, 61% of leading CEOs believe that AI investments can accelerate innovation (see chart). By combining data discipline with creative freedom, even the most established brands can move fast and stay human. Or, as Lee put it: “AI isn’t creative—you are. The system just helps you prove it.”