Interactive future for targeted dispensers ads?

Getting back from the summer holidays, Italians got a nasty surprise: the price of a cup of coffee had climbed from 80 cents to one euro! But the Japanese seem to have found an inventive solution to overpriced coffee…

It’s fairly well known that vending machines are an essential part of Japanese culture. The country’s low rates of vandalism and graffiti-writing, high population density and shopping 24/7 have put Japan at the top of the list in terms of number of vending machines per capita: 1 every 23 people.

Last spring, a joint venture between Apex, the second largest operator in the dispensers’ market, and Willb, a Japanese advertising agency, gave birth to a new concept in vending machines, in which drinks are distributed almost for free.

Under the name of “MediCafe“, machines play an advert video for around 30 seconds (exactly the time the machine needs to fill the cup of coffee) on the 19-inch LCD display built into them. Consumers choose their drink by activating a touch screen and this feature provides additional opportunities to develop creative interactive ads.

These experimental vending machines have been placed in universities, hospitals and companies and are filled not only with warm and soft drinks but also with targeted advertisements that have allowed a drop in price to almost to zero yen. It looks like the first two-month trial has been successful enough to evolve to the next (more interactive) stage.