Pepsi's Social Vending Machine

Pepsi has found a new way to make a social experience out of their product.  They have created a touchscreen vending machine that allows users not only to purchase a soda, but also purchase a soda for a friend (that is not with them), send them a video message/text message to their phone (from the machine) and they can redeem their free soda at another machine.

The thing I love most about this machine is it has an option called "Random Acts of Refreshment".  This option makes it so the buyer can purchase a Pepsi drink for a random stranger located at some other social vending machine.  Refreshing indeed!

A prototyped version of the machine was supposed to appear at this year's One Show April 27-29.

“Our vision is to use innovative technology to empower consumers and create new ways for them to engage with our brands, their social networks and each other at the point of purchase,” said Mikel Durham, Chief Innovation Officer at PepsiCo Foodservice. “Social Vending extends our consumers’ social networks beyond the confines of their own devices and transforms a static, transaction-oriented experience into something fun and exciting they’ll want to return to, again and again.”

The machine supposedly offers 100 different flavors.  Sounds like it must be a pretty big machine...

Overall I think this is a very innovative way to go about creating a stronger social network around the brand.  Nothing like this has really ever been done before and I will be interested to see if it takes off.  Sounds like a great idea to me, although I myself am not much of a soda drinker.

The below video shows how the vending machine will work.

To read Pepsi's press release on the machine visit:  Pepsi