- Mashable, Thursday, April 28, 2011 11:44 AM
Combining two of today's hottest marketing trends, digital out-of-home and social, Pepsi is testing a vending machine that lets consumers send free soda to friends. With PepsiCo's Social Vending
Machine, users select a beverage and enter the recipient's name, mobile number and personalized text message with a code redeemable at another vending machine. "Consumers can personalize the message
with a short video recorded by the machine," explains Mashable.
Says Mikel Durham, chief innovation officer at PepsiCo Foodservice: "The new machine 'extends our consumers' social
networks beyond the confines of their own devices and transforms a static, transaction-oriented experience into something fun." Yet, Mashable is critical of the fact that the initiative fails to
factor Facebook or Twitter -- calling the absence "a glaring omission." Said to be experimenting with the social possibilities of it own vending machines, look for Coca-Cola take the idea to the next
level.
Read the whole story at Mashable »