Text for a Coke at the Mobile Marketing Association Forum

June 20th, 2011

Topics: Digital Marketing, Mobile, Mobile Measurement

This past Friday at the Mobile Marketing Association Forum I found myself still in need of caffeine after my morning coffee.  Imagine my excitement to finally find the incredibly popular Coke machine at the event without a line! Why was it so popular? This particular vending machine offered a pretty unique feature - it doesn’t take cash, coin or credit card.

It looks like any other modern vending machine except you pay with a mobile device. You simply send a text to a specified number, the service bills your carrier and in turn gets passed onto your monthly bill. The service than credits the machine, you enter your selection and BAM… ice cold Diet Coke in hand.  Mobile payments are still somewhat of a novelty today in North America, but they will be commonplace soon enough.

As we progress further into a cashless society, mobile payments offer us the promise of convenience and brands and retailers the ability to better understand how their promotions are converting sales in the real world. Brands like Coca-Cola are betting on the premise that convenience breeds frequency. We’re thrilled to be on the newly formed mobile measurement committee with them.

In the presentation Doug Busk gave on  “Driving Mobile Capability Globally” he also talked about some of Coca-Cola’s other mobile efforts like the use of PINutes, which let mobile users exchange a product code found on a cap or other promotion via text for free mobile minutes or data.

It is not hard to imagine how we marketers will begin to connect these purchases to digital marketing promotions. Campaigns featuring coupons, special offers or reward redemptions are now even easier to measure the effectiveness of all the way to the point of sale.

What have you seen recently that excited you?

  • http://Website Erik Mellenius

    Those things have been around for ages! Here in Stockholm, they’re at every subway station. Come on guys.

    Oh, and yes, they’re using campaigns and coupons and stuff too. Right now there’s a buy 5 get the 6th free deal, where your phone keeps track of your purchases and you get your e-voucher automatically if you make 5 purchases from these machines within a month.