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Coca Cola Supply and Demand
December writes "Short article about Coca Cola testing vending machines that raise the price when temperatures rise. " I can see it now: at a hundred degrees it'll cost 2 bucks. And 105 it'll cost 20. At 110 it'll cost as much as a minivan and at 120 it'll cost ya your pension and 401k. It'll still be cheaper than the freakin' movie theater.
Interactive experience... probably defined as rocking the machine violently in 100 degree heat while the machine says "please deposit correct change".....
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"Before we can serve you with the nice cold (32 Degrees) Coke that you have already spent $5 for, we would like for you to take a 50 question survey" (Touch interface has 2 buttons "OK" and "Cancel" (Cancel is greyed out).
In most areas, raising the price by too much when it's hotter wouldn't work. Why? Because all someone would have to do would be walk a couple more feet and find another vending machine that doesn't do that. (I prefer those $.25 sodas they sell outside of grocery stores)
Unfortunatley, one large market where Coke has the monopoly is high schools and colleges. All they have to do is donate a scoreboard for the women's softball team and poof, they're the only ones selling soda on campus. When this happens, they can do whatever the hell they want to.. they COULD raise it to $20 even on cold days and since most students don't have that much time to run off of campus between classes (if they even can in the case of high schools) they either fork over the cash or suffer with the metallic tasting drinking fountain water.
People: This is gonna be a weird one. Yes, I could spout endlessly about the ridiculousness of real-time price gouging. But complaining about what is the obvious part--reverse engineering the why is where things get interesting.
Welcome to the new misshapen love child of greed and interactivity.
Coca Cola deigns itself an entertainment provider--this is cool and all, but I get the off feeling that they want to turn their coke machines into something you need to spend an extra thirty seconds standing in front of, doing something, anything as long as they get to inject their brand into progressively higher levels of conscious thought and thus more lasting mindshare.
There are strategists right now drooling over the possibilities of giving a dime off a coke in return for knowing who the Coca Cola BlowJob Woman Of The Month is, or whatever else somebody pays Coca Cola to inject into the national consciousness.
Advertising is starting to get very strange--its hardcore but the very successful funding of television combined with the progessively more desperate advances of Internet properties losing the patience of their Venture Capitalist Sugar Daddies is starting to put their whim at even more of a spotlight in American culture.
There are more than a small amount of irony in the fact that where religion wanes, a new breed of idolatry takes even greater relevance.
As I see it, American culture has created the all too peculiar Caged Idol, whose likeness, usage, and applications are tightly controlled under penalty of legal harassment. One truly has to stand back and appreciate the openness of religion--anyone is free to paint Jesus, or, with no small amount of irony, sculpt a likeness of Mao. Religion is no stranger to enforcement against those who would criticize(witness the furor over the recent New York art exhibit), but in general, religions that allow any imagery is pretty free regarding who may create it.
Entire swaths of society have abandoned religion, but they're no strangers to idols. As one of my friends observed, "Most people at this school find someone interesting if they have a new Abercrombie shirt on."
In a culture where idols are trotted out for selling everything from identities to shoes(or do I repeat myself?), the usage of variable pricing schemes is but a sign of a new level of integration between divergent aspects of American Culture: Idol Worship meets The Almighty Sale.
Temperature sensors are but a ruse--the real concept that Coca Cola wants to play with is the idea that the price of a Coke can change. For simplicity, they'll start out by giving you ten cents off if you slide your card--the knowledge that it was *you* who bought that coke is worth more than a dime. As time goes on, they'll unveil their hyperactive dispensers with LCD touch screen quizzes--remember the national consciousness injections? Those who are "in with Coke" get cheaper product. Those who don't pay more money, which is enough of a pain to force them to answer correctly.
Will this work? Possibly. Will it be degrading beyond all compare? Very possibly.
Comments?
Yours Truly,
Dan Kaminsky
DoxPara Research
http://www.doxpara.com
...right here:
http://www.thecoca- colacompany.com/newsub.asp?NewsDate=10/28/99
Of note is the comment that they are going to provide "interactive experiences" at the coke machine. Any comments ??