• by June 20, 2012

During a morning presentation in which he first expressed amazement that "Australians can get up this early?" Joe Tripodi, chief marketing and commercial officer at Coke, was talking impressions. Specifically, the impressions earned by a video showing its "Hug Me" vending machine, installed at a university in Singapore, that dispensed free cans of Coke to kids who went up and literally put their arms around the cold, square-ish thing. He said that the video capturing the hug experiences created over "112 impressions in 7 days." 

That's pretty impressive, as virals go, right up there with cats acting cute. But he wasn't satisfied.

"Impressions are great. But they have to lead to conversations and transactions." (Meaning the mob of consumers have to join the story and extend it, being brand advocates.) They can’t be funny little videos here and there".