Source: http://www.japanprobe.com/?p=1713 Apparently Apex Vending is putting in a few select regions, free soft drink vending machines. The catch is that while the drink is poured, about 30 seconds, an advertisement video is run on the machine. Your paper cup will also have an advertisement printed on it. The cost of the drink is covered by the advertisers. I think this is a very cool idea - because with the amount of ads I see in a typical day anyway - I might as well get a free drink out of it. Most paper cups have ads printed on them anyway - seems like a fair trade that we the consumer benefit from ad revenue spent on those cups! Anyone have one of these Apex machines near them?
sounds cool but down here all our cup type vending machines are the Nesscaffee ones with M2 hardware inside Yakumo
Thats how it starts out. Free drink with ads printed all over. Then the free part is gone but the ad part stays.
I like the concept. Normally I'm very anti-advertisement (and anti-capitalist, and anti-cotton candy) but this seems like a decent tradeoff. It is only 30 seconds and you don't need to pay attention to it. Plus its free drink! I do wonder though when all this "pay by advertisements" stuff is going to feel the bottom give way. Statistically speaking advertisements are highly ineffective. Imagine the chaos that will ensue when business actually believe the marketing data? And btw, you sound like an old man Buyatari. :lol:
Pump society with free sugar and calories and then send them off to spend their money on junk they don't need. A classic idea that is sure not to fail!
Just what I had wanted to say. Really, they should rather start and reduce the amount of vending machines that are turned on 24/7 offering hot and cold drinks and need at least one atomic power plant to run. People demand "convenience" and then refuse to accept atomic waste being buried next to their homes.
yeah but come on. If this becomes commonplace and we get used to the ads how long before we have ads on the drinks we pay for? Then how long before the ones with the free drinks go away. Those who remember the start of cable tv will recall it was ad free and that was the selling point. Now here we are still paying and the ads are here. The consumer always yakes it in the end.
We already do have ads on the drinks we pay for. Look at every paper cup you've gotten from any pizza shop, hot dog vendor, carry out restaurant, gas station, etc. 95% of them have some brand printed on them - wether is the place you bought from, or a brand of beverage (ironically i've gotten paper "Coca-Cola" cups from places that served Pepsi exclusively) or something to that effect. The other 5% are those non descript cups with the pastel tones printed on them - but they are few and far between. I don't disagree with your main point. Another example could be Net Zero (American ISP) - they started out as free dial up, that was paid for by rotating banner ads built into the client. Now they are 9.95 a month or something, and I don't use them but I'm sure the ads are still there. The vending service though seems like a fair trade off - since most of the time my cup has an ad on it anyway. And the 30 second video runs during the time it takes for the drink to pour.
