Coca-Cola’s Million Dollar Hug

A Coke vending machine (above) was installed at the National University of Singapore with “Hug Me” written on it in Coke’s iconic font. The currency for a soda is a squeeze… a literal machine hug for a free Coke.

Gestural marketing, in this case brilliantly executed, iterates on Coca-Cola’s Open Happiness campaign, launched in 2010 at St. John’s University, and seen in this video.

It posed the metaphorical question, “Where will happiness strike next?” and millions of views later, as the campaign spread to other countries, tools and platforms were in place via global activation kits for custom spots from other cultures such as this one from Brazil. Continue reading...