Watching this video of Coca-Cola’s new interactive vending machine, Anthony J Phillips, the Global Marketing Manager of Coca-Cola, talks about the “fantastic partnership between marketing, technology and design”. I think it’s a profound and important partnership that will dominate marcomms into the future. I’d add another element – human behaviour in the form of anthropology / behavioural economics.
How best will we marketers and communicators best be trained for this future – in order to best understand and communicate with people? Technology studies? Cultural anthropology? Town Planning? Data science? Architecture and Design? Typography? Behavioural Economics? Sociology? All of the above?
To me, old fashioned integrated Marketing and Public Relations & Communications just doesn’t cut the mustard anymore.
Conno,
Perhaps you should’ve worded this piece “The holy trinity of 21st Century marketing – communications, technology and design”.
I missed the point of the sale because the guy kept giving me buzzwords like platform, partnership, brand experience, fresh breath of life, initiatives, interactive.
I could swear this guy is trying to sell vending machines rather than Coke.
Oh that’s right, you are interested in furthering the R & D of those vending machines. Your article title was spot on after all. I get it, I get it.
Here’s a couple of free ones you could build into a snack/confection vending machine:
*Product preference as dictated by personal settings stored on your mobile phone/ subdermal ID module.
*Portion control as directed by you or your parents/doctor/The State.
*Product suggestion through breath analysis. While intoxicated you are certain to prefer Chicken Twisties as opposed to Cheezels when you are smoking the Zombie. Presence of speed or E in your breath will give you chewing gum.
*Individual customers can be targeted with micro-vertising for specific products. The vending machine could, in theory, recognise faces or at least silhouettes of people standing before it and suggest sell:
$$$$$$$ Boxed chocolate to couples holding hands
$$$$$$$ Lolly pops to a child standing next to an adult, coveniently displayed at the child’s face height.
$$$$$$$ Larger bars to fat people.
$$$$$$$ Premium chocolate to people wearing $900.00 jeans.
*Having access to your social networking site and personal blog the vending machine will paint a particular picture of who you are at this moment. It could do this through pre-programmed status updates users can select from or pick codewords out of your online weep-log.
Examples:
Codewords Customer Status Product suggestion
Bloated, Dumped Unhappy fat chick Cadbury 250gm triple pk
Cousins, Sleepover Excitable kids Wizz Fizz, Nerds
Nudity, techno Eurotrash Sesame snaps
Night, two jobs Pressed for time Corn chips and dip
Arse, sex, men Gay Jolly Ranchers (xtra jolly)
*This product can also be woven into the augmented reality environment to direct hungry consumers promptly to an outlet vending their particular products.
No doubt the product will find its niche.
Paul Karagiannis
Quite brilliant Paul…