Pepsi Introduces “Social Vending Machine”

Pepsi is taking social sharing to a whole new level. The company on Wednesday announced the world’s first “social vending machine” which allows users to insert money and send refreshing beverages to friends who can then access their free drinks through other social vending machines around the country.

The system is simple enough to operate, first a user walks up to a machine and chooses a beverage to “share” with a friend, they then insert their cash and enter a personalized text message, while some machines will even have cameras for video messaging.

After the users send the drink they’ve paid for the receiving party can access their beverage from any social vending machine they can find.

Pepsi will also be offering random free drinks to social media users in a program they call “Random Acts of Refreshment.”

Here’s what Pepsi had to say about their social vending machines:

Social Vending also enables “Random Acts of Refreshment” – the ability to buy a drink for a complete stranger through any other Social Vending system. For example, a consumer could send a symbol of encouragement to a city that’s experienced some challenging weather, or a congratulatory beverage to a university that just won a championship. The platform holds potential to extend all PepsiCo’s digital and social programs, including Doritos “Crash the Super Bowl” Takeover™, Pepsi Refresh Project® and DEWmocracy, beyond consumers’ own devices all the way to the point of purchase.

Would you be willing to buy your social followers a Pepsi? I’m definitely all for free random acts of refreshment.