Earlier this week, two new videos of gamified Coke vending machines have appeared on the Internet. Both of these seem to have taken a hint of inspiration from a similar campaign done by Fantastic Delites, in which a person can walk up to the machine and be tasked with a challenge in order to win some free stuff.
The first gamified Coke vending machine comes from Seoul and challenges onlookers to dance likepop-group 2PM to win free bottles of Coke. The better the dance, the more bottles the player can earn:
Interestingly enough, the vending machine seems to be powered by the Microsoft Kinect to measure each player’s moves (and evidently the average person in that mall is an expert break-dancer as well).The second machine comes from Antwerp, Belgium as a marketing campaign for the new Bond movie, Skyfall. People who walked up to the machine are given the opportunity to win free tickets to see the movie, if they can “unlock the 007 in them”:
While these videos make for really interesting marketing campaigns, I’m not sure I can completely believe it. Random expert break-dancers and Coke Zero enthusiasts who look like handsome actors call into question of whether or not any of these videos actually were done by real people. I highly doubt a Kinect is capable of assessing an expert 1990 to the degree of 6 Coke bottles.
Real or Fake? What do you think? If this catches on in America, I see an opportunity for a vending-machine reality show across malls in the U.S.
There is another example from CocaCola: the biggest vending machine in the world: http://gdegamificacion.com/2012/10/18/la-maquina-de-vending-mas-grande-del-mundo/
[…] America, I see an opportunity for a vending-machine reality show across malls in the U.S. See on http://www.gamification.co Tweet (function() { var s = document.createElement('SCRIPT'), s1 = […]
[…] their marketing campaigns worldwide. We saw one Coke vending machine challenge mall visitors to dance for free Coke in South Korea. And another Coke machine in Europe challenged commuters to be James Bond to […]
I’m always blown away by this new type of Coca-Cola marketing campaigns. You just cannot deny how engaging and genuinely fun they seem. As for them being made with real people or not, I do believe it is real people in the videos, they do however, use a few tricks. I remember for instance, another campaign in Singapore where people were asked to place their empty cans or bottles inside a Coca-Cola recycling station / vending machine; once people did, the machine would drop a prize. Prizes started out as Coca-Cola beverages but then they turned to things like flowers and T-shirts. A hand would come out of the slot to hand out the price, thus revealing that there was a live person inside the machine. So in this case, the same might be true, maybe there was a live person inside the machine or there was a live video feed of the people dancing and that is how judging was done.
As for the Bond campaign, I assume they might have simply edited the released video with the better-looking people. It’s all marketing after all.
Thanks for the comment Juan! I agree Coca Cola is really on their game when it comes to all of these engaging campaigns. They really need to come to GSummit to talk about it some more. I’m really skeptical about how real everything is (always will be) but I can’t deny there must be some degree of truth to this.
I did check out their Chok campaign and while there is no denying its effectiveness, it lacks (in my opinion) the “warmth” that some of their previous campaigns had, like the one where people would interact with a vending machine that would seemingly be malfunctioning as it delivered more bottles of Coca Cola with every transaction, and finally someone inside the vending machine would hand out Pizza so everyone could sit down and enjoy it with their free drinks. Obviously these are different approaches for different purposes, but I do like it better when companies build bridges between the corporation and their customers. The quality of user interaction in the Chok campaign also seems rather mindless and repetitive, whereas previous campaigns have fostered collaboration between random strangers and more elements of surprise that simply add delight to both players and people watching.
There is another example from CocaCola: the biggest vending machine in the world: http://gdegamificacion.com/2012/10/18/la-maquina-de-vending-mas-grande-del-mundo/
[…] on http://www.gamification.co Share this:TwitterFacebookLike this:LikeBe the first to like this. This entry was posted in […]
[…] America, I see an opportunity for a vending-machine reality show across malls in the U.S. See on http://www.gamification.co Tweet (function() { var s = document.createElement('SCRIPT'), s1 = […]
[…] their marketing campaigns worldwide. We saw one Coke vending machine challenge mall visitors to dance for free Coke in South Korea. And another Coke machine in Europe challenged commuters to be James Bond to […]
I’m always blown away by this new type of Coca-Cola marketing campaigns. You just cannot deny how engaging and genuinely fun they seem. As for them being made with real people or not, I do believe it is real people in the videos, they do however, use a few tricks. I remember for instance, another campaign in Singapore where people were asked to place their empty cans or bottles inside a Coca-Cola recycling station / vending machine; once people did, the machine would drop a prize. Prizes started out as Coca-Cola beverages but then they turned to things like flowers and T-shirts. A hand would come out of the slot to hand out the price, thus revealing that there was a live person inside the machine. So in this case, the same might be true, maybe there was a live person inside the machine or there was a live video feed of the people dancing and that is how judging was done.
As for the Bond campaign, I assume they might have simply edited the released video with the better-looking people. It’s all marketing after all.
Thanks for the comment Juan! I agree Coca Cola is really on their game when it comes to all of these engaging campaigns. They really need to come to GSummit to talk about it some more. I’m really skeptical about how real everything is (always will be) but I can’t deny there must be some degree of truth to this.
If you liked this, you should also check out their Chok campaign – http://www.gamification.co/2013/02/21/chok-coca-cola-marketing-campaign/
I did check out their Chok campaign and while there is no denying its effectiveness, it lacks (in my opinion) the “warmth” that some of their previous campaigns had, like the one where people would interact with a vending machine that would seemingly be malfunctioning as it delivered more bottles of Coca Cola with every transaction, and finally someone inside the vending machine would hand out Pizza so everyone could sit down and enjoy it with their free drinks. Obviously these are different approaches for different purposes, but I do like it better when companies build bridges between the corporation and their customers. The quality of user interaction in the Chok campaign also seems rather mindless and repetitive, whereas previous campaigns have fostered collaboration between random strangers and more elements of surprise that simply add delight to both players and people watching.
[…] technique through its “gamified coke vending machine” which can be located at the following URL http://www.gamification.co/2012/10/26/coca-cola-takes-vending-machine-marketing-to-the-next-level/ in which individuals who dance have the potential to win free […]