The social vending machine.

It doesn’t often happen but I love it when I show my class something that relates to social media and business that they don’t know already know about - this was one example!

Pepsi seem to have stolen a march on Coca-Cola by integrating social media with their drinks distribution business - giving consumers the ability to gift a drink to anyone they want as long as that person can get to one of the special vending machines. How long will it be before consumer products businesses see this as a “must-have” in terms of their distribution network? Of course, until a network of vending machines exists, the idea will be slow to take off - I doubt many would travel too far to receive their gift! But if it does take off then it could become very popular for small birthday presents (along with the now customary Facebook birthday wishes…)

Pepsi’s promotional video of their idea can be seen here. In addition to a quick written note, users can also send a video message with the gift if their phone has the capability to do this.

(And a hat-tip to my Business Studies colleague who shared this at our inter-school “cluster” meeting, a great way to share the latest ideas and resources for teaching)