I spotted this article over at Mashable.com today and thought I’d share it. What a great example of how Coca-Cola can tap into crowdsourcing in real time to understand how fans and customers think drinks. And for customers who live in a larger town, there is a good chance they can take their ideas and quickly turn them around into a reality via a vending machine that dispenses their own unique concoction. I wonder how an application like this can help Facebook fans of other companies create their favorite restaurant meal, custom footwear or even the latest automobile design?
Coca-Cola on Wednesday rolled out a Facebook app that lets you mix your own Coke drink. The app is no online-only experiment, though: Real Coke vending machines that do the same thing are rolling out across the country.
The Coca-Cola Freestyle app, created by digital marketing agency 360i, lets you mix a drink using 125 Coke beverages, including Coca-Cola, Sprite, Fanta and Powerade. After choosing each, you hold down a “push” button to fill a cup of your choosing. When you fill your cup, you can name it. There’s also a game designed for the iPhone and Android formats.
The Facebook Page also directs you to Freestyle vending machines in your area and lets you ask for one in your town. There are now about 1,500 such machines in restaurants like Wendy’s, Burger King and Five Guys, but Coke plans to make more noise about Freestyle next year. The company is working with ad agency Ogilvy & Mather on a 2012 ad campaign for Freestyle, according to Advertising Age. Coke would like the apps to eventually generate a 2-D barcode, which could be scanned at one of the machines to create a blend, according to Ad Age.
The future – at least in the short term – will make our identities even more of an open book if we’re not careful. That’s according to a new report out from the Institute for the Future called Information Generation: Transforming the Future Today, and identifies five “key directional shifts” in the coming decade. 1….
Learn how Amazon decides where to expand, focuses on customer happiness, takes the long-term view, leverages core strengths, doesn’t fear big bets, and more; how you can adapt these approaches to fit your organization. Amazon’s 20-year record of double-digit revenue growth is unmatched in industry. While much of its success can be attributed to CEO…
“Crowdshake” is a new app that can create a network of earthquake-sensing smartphones, triggering warnings on nearby devices when tremors are detected by those nearer the epicenter. The technology is created by the Caltech Community Seismic Network and uses GPS to provide data about potential earthquakes. The app is only as good as those who…
I’ve been looking into the Foursquare application lately, noting that some of my staff seem to love checking in to venues they visit. At first you might think it is easy to dismiss the mobile social-gaming phenom that awards the most frequent patron the title of mayor. (Then you hear that some dirty politics may…
Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR) are redefining what is possible and creating a world where reality and imagination converge. In our last article, we explored the transformative effects of AR and VR on consumer engagement and operational efficiency. We also delved into how these technologies enrich our reality and transport us to new…
As more and more companies leverage crowdsourcing to market and sell their products, Harvard Business Review wanted to know if customers would be more eager to buy if they knew folks like themselves helped come up with the innovation or marketing: We decided to look at how consumers perceive crowdsourced new products and in particular…
