Magazine: Vending machines: past, present and future (Part 4)

This time we are taking a look at the added marketing value of vending machines. Some firms mainly concentrate on vending machines’ advertising value when placing them, for instance Apple puts them at ‘strategic locations’ such as airports and top hotels, where members of their target groups have a few minutes to spend which can be used to make them consider the thought of making a purchase. We see the ‘Free wi-fi’ sign in bars and restaurants more and more often. Probably this where the idea came from for Coca-Cola in South Africa: they started offering free wi-fi service in Coca-Cola vending machine zones. Pepsi’s touchscreen vending machines make it possible for customers to ‘send’ products to people they know – a text message informs the recipient that a soft drink is waiting for them, together with a video message recorded and played by the vending machine. Argentine beer brand Salta installed vending machines from which people could only get their beer if – having inserted the money – they tackled the machine just like rugby players do; a power meter even showed customers how they did! British company Britvic came out with vending machines for the Juicy Drench drink, which gave the drink for free to those who were able to solve one of the 40 logic puzzles that can be played on the touchscreen. In a Portuguese campaign Unilever’s vending machine gifted those customers with a Magnum ice cream whose smile was big enough according to the machine’s ‘smile-o-meter’. The vending machine even took a photo of them, which was uploaded to Facebook with the person’s consent. Japanese company Apex plans to set up special drink vending machines, called MediCafe: while the drink is being made – about 30 seconds – they play an advertisement and the drink is sold in a paper cup that bears the advertiser’s name or advertisement; in return, a part of the drink’s price or the full price is paid by the advertiser. Last year Nestlé placed a drink vending machine in Istanbul’s biggest shopping mall that gave away free chocolate bars after each 15th ‘like’ on the Facebook page.(To be continued)