Tag: Italy

Coca-Cola Peace Machines

Small World Machines. India and Pakistan meet through a Coke

Over the years Coca-Cola keeps experimenting with vending machines and tries to make them much more than the average soda-spitter-outer. It places two machines, one in India and the other in Pakistan, and turns them into a communication portal. These “Small World Machines” allow citizens from both countries to interact with each other and complete shared tasks. The machines reward them with a Coke. The results…

Fair Play Machines. Inter and Milan fans can only give to rivals

The success of that has inspired Coca-Cola to once again bring fighting parties together. Now instead of bringing together nations at odds, it has tapped into the rivalry between Italian soccer teams Inter and Milan.

To ease the aggression between the fans, Coca-Cola installed their “Fair Play Machines” on opposite sides of Milan’s San Siro stadium as the teams faced off. Pressing the button of one machine dropped a Coke can down the chute of that on the side of the rival team. So this way rivals could only receive Cokes from each other. The results…

What this teaches about “peace” as a design problem

The strongest move is not messaging. It is creating a constraint that makes cooperation the easiest path to a reward. When a machine encodes that rule, behaviour shifts without anyone needing to preach.

A few fast answers before you act

What are Coca-Cola “Peace Machines” in this context?

They are vending machine concepts that turn a simple Coke transaction into a social interaction, designed to reduce tension between rival groups.

What is the core mechanic of the Fair Play Machines?

Pressing the button on one machine sends a Coke to the machine on the rival side. Rivals can only receive Cokes from each other.

How do Small World Machines relate to this?

They use the same principle. A machine becomes a bridge, enabling people in opposing contexts to interact and complete shared tasks that lead to a reward.

What is the main design lesson for brands?

If you want behaviour change, build the rule into the experience. Make the cooperative action the trigger for the reward, and keep it simple enough to understand instantly.

Donate Your Profile

ActionAid is an organisation committed to many projects, like fighting hunger and poverty. But in Italy it is known primarily for the sponsoring of children.

So to communicate the work of ActionAid with a small media and production budget in Italy, ad agency DLV BBDO came up with the “Donate your Profile” project. Participants donated their Facebook and Twitter profile pictures to the project so that more awareness could be generated for the stories of people ActionAid helped.

The project received support from Radio 105, Radio Deejay, La Stampa, Marc Marquez and many other Italian celebrities and brands. Seeing this many more people joined in and donated their profiles pictures. The project became the 5th most trending topic on Twitter and received over 79 million media impressions.

To donate your profile visit https://case.donailtuoprofilo.it

Lexus IS Hybrid: Trace Your Road

To promote its new, high-performance Hybrid car, Lexus along with Saatchi & Saatchi Italy created “Trace Your Road”, an experiential event featuring Formula 1 driver, Jarno Trulli.

For the event ten Lexus fans were selected from hundreds of applicants on the Lexus’ Facebook page. These selected fans were then given the opportunity to sit in the passenger seat of the new Hybrid car with Trulli at the wheel. The course was traced by the fan sitting in the car on an iPad that projected the course designs onto the floor of the aircraft hangar with the help of special projectors. The car itself was tracked using a custom high-res infrared (IR) camera system.

Trulli’s driving skills were put to the test as he attempted to follow the spontaneous, real-time paths. Penalties points were given when the car went outside the projected routes and or touched the walls of the aircraft hangar. The goal of the game was to hit 7 selected touch points in the quickest time, the fan with the best score won.

This campaign helped Lexus successfully highlight the cars design and performance while innovatively connecting with its target audience.