Pittsburgh Penguins and Boston Red Sox fans get Twitter-activated vending machines

Six months ago, if you’d asked me share the first thought that popped into my head after hearing the words “Dayton, Ohio,” I probably would have said, “Guided by Voices.” And if you asked me that same question today? Honestly, I’d probably still say “Guided by Voices.” But I’d also have a second answer: Innovative Vending Solutions.

Based in Dayton, IVS is something of a cross between a very forward-thinking technology firm and a bespoke vending machine manufacturer that has lately been producing social media-activated vending machines for professional sports organizations.

Last December, two Red Sox vending machines—one powered by Twitter, and the other by Instagram, and both developed by IVS—showed up at Boston’s Samuel Adams Square, where fans queued for a chance to win BoSox-themed prizes. It’s a promotion that I’m assuming was a runaway success, since literally everyone who showed up walked away with something, as long as they were willing to send a tweet or an Instagram photo with a specific hashtag attached. (In this case, it was #TheGiftOfSox.)

By now, most of know how social vending machines work: After sending a tweet, a user receives a unique code, which can be redeemed in the machine. At #TheGiftOfSox promo last December, fans walked away with everything from baseball bats and game tickets to actual pairs of socks. Take a look at the video below for more:

The machine still appears to be going strong. It’s currently located inside Fenway Park, by the Gate C entrance behind the bleachers.

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Interactive Vending in Pittsburgh

Less than a week ago, fans of the Pittsburgh Penguins got their own social media-activated vending machine, also courtesy of IVS.

Aesthetically and operationally, it’s no different than the BoSox machine: It’s filled with little white boxes that contain Penguins-branded prizes, including autographed hockey pucks, bobbleheads, jerseys, playoff tickets and earbuds. (What, no Moon Pittsburgh guidebooks?!)

Users are required to tweet their favorite Penguins playoff moment before receiving a unique code that the machine accepts as currency. And while it’s not entirely clear when the Penguins plan to make the machine operational—it’s apparently not accessible during every home game—occasional updates are being made on the @Penguins Twitter account.

Here’s a news report about the machine’s arrival at the city’s Consol Energy Center from KDKA, Pittsburgh’s CBS affiliate:

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IVS’ Other Innovative Vending Machine Solutions

It should be noted, however, that the roughly seven-year-old Innovative Vending Solutions has historically created interactive vending machines that have nothing at all to do with professional sports. (Although last month the Cincinnati Reds unveiled their own IVS machine, which was designed to promote this summer’s All-Star Game weekend, and it’s almost a given that other pro sports teams will soon be following suit.)

If you head to the Case Studies page on the IVS website, for instance, you can learn about interactive vending machines the company has developed for Conan O’Brien (free T-shirts; shown at right) and IKEA (candy and gift cards). They even developed a machine for Google Wallet that was activated by an NFC reader.

If you’re so inclined, you can follow IVS on Twitter at @InnovativeVend. (You can also follow Coin Control at @CoinControl.)

Vending Machine Culture Captured by Documentary Filmmakers: The Automat and The Art-o-Mat

Art-o-Mat founder Clark Whittington

Art-o-Mat: The Art Machine

Over the past couple weeks we’ve been telling you about some of the interactive and social-powered vending machines that made an appearance at this year’s South by Southwest festival. Well, it seems that vending culture made an appearance on the big screen at SXSW2015 as well.

Jose Couvillion, a senior at a San Antonio high school known as the North East School of the Arts, has apparently made a short documentary film about art-vending pioneer Clark Whittington and his Art-o-Mat project. It screened twice during South By as part of a documentary shorts competition.

If you’re a regular Coin Control reader, you’re probably already familiar with Whittington and his work. But for those of you who might not be, Whittington is a North Carolina-based artist who buys retired cigarette vending machines and rehabs them into unbelievably gorgeous dispensers of miniature art.

The Art-o-Mats, as the machines are called, can be found in more than 100 locations around the world, although most are in the United States. Go here to see if there’s an Art-o-Mat somewhere near your corner of the world.

As for Jose Couvillion’s film, which is called “Art-o-Mat: The Art Machine,” I unfortunately don’t know the first thing about it, aside from the fact that it’s only four minutes long. I do plan on reaching out to Couvillion, though, to see if we might be able to share the film here on Coin Control at some point. Stay tuned.

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The Automat: The Documentary Film

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1105468216/the-automat-the-horn-and-hardart-documentary-film

Just over a week ago, the Kickstarter campaign for a feature-length documentary film about the Horn & Hardart company’s legendary chain of Automat cafeterias ended successfully. It raised almost $6,000 more than its starting goal of $50,000. And according to a story about the film that ran recently in the Village Voice, it seems as if the film, known simply as “The Automat,” is now in post-production. (A very respectful tip o’ the hat to Zachary Feldman, the author of the Village Voice piece, for mentioning the BAMN! automat that existed for three short years on St. Mark’s Place in Manhattan before shutting its doors in 2009.)

The story of Horn & Hardart’s chain of Automats is incredibly fascinating, and perhaps even more so if you’ve never had a chance to experience an automat yourself.

The company’s first Automat opened way back in June 1902, right here in Coin Control’s hometown of Philadelphia. New York City got its first H&H Automat one month later, and for the next seven decades or so, the restaurant-style cafeterias where affordable, high-quality food was dispensed from little plastic boxes lining the walls were hugely popular in both cities.

The old Automat locations, of course, are now long gone, which makes this documentary project even more important than it otherwise would have been. And while it’s too late to contribute to the Kickstarter campaign, you can certainly support the film by catching a screening once it appears in theaters.

Take a look at the old-school slideshow film below about H&H’s Automat restaurants, and as soon as we have more information about where and when to catch a screening of “The Automat,” we’ll let you know.

The SXSW Vending Machine Scene: An update

Boy, was I ever mistaken when I suggested in last weekend’s inaugural installment of Coin Wire that there didn’t seem to be a lot happening in the vending machine scene this year at South by Southwest, which wraps up tomorrow, March 22, in Austin, Texas.

After doing a bit of online sleuthing earlier this evening, I stumbled onto a few promising bits of information suggesting that the intersection of vending and innovation is indeed alive and well at SXSW this year. (Deep sigh of relief.)

Doritos #BoldStage (Rest in Peace)

But first things first: Vanyaland’s Michael Marotta has a decent article that sheds a bit of light on the decision by Doritos not to return this year with its infamous “62-foot, four-story, LCD-screened vending machine stage.”According to Marotta, who cites a report by the Austin Business Journal, a number of major corporate sponsors choose to steer clear of the festival this year “as permits tighten[ed] for outdoor shows and concerts.” (During SXSW 2014, four people waiting in line for an outdoor event were killed by a wayward SUV driver.)

To get a sense of just how hugely impressive the interactive vending machine stage really was, take a look at this Mashable story from 2013. It explains how concertgoers at a previous South By event were able to choose the concert’s opening act — and even the encore song performed by rapper LL Cool J — by interacting with the mammoth machine via Twitter.

By tagging tweets with the #BoldStage hashtag, concertgoers were even able to control the stage’s special effects, including the smoke and laser machines, blasts of confetti, and the launching of beach balls and balloons. Even better: If the first video below can be believed, the Bold Stage did, at some point, release a torrent of chip bags during the event, just like a real vending machine.

Candyman Vending’s Hip-Hop Machines

Click to enlarge, son

According to my friend Andre Bramwell, who runs the Houston-based Candyman Vending, which has made a name for itself lately by partnering with big names in hip-hop (Riff Raff and Krayzie Bone, for instance) to create uniquely branded custom vending machines, Candyman is at South By this year, and can be found in the vendor lot at the corner of East 7th and Trinity streets.

Seriously: Check this guy out. We think he’s one of the most innovative entrepreneurs operating in the vending industry today. And for what it’s worth, Bramwell tells us he’s got something new in the works that he hopes to launch in time for the Austin City Limits Music Festival in early October. We’ll definitely keep you in the loop if we get more details in the coming months.

The Last Man on Earth Vending Machine

Because we’re proud cord cutters here at Coin Control, we haven’t had a chance to see “The Last Man on Earth,” a new Fox television show about a mild-mannered bank employee played by Will Forte (of “Saturday Night Live” fame) who wakes up one day in the year 2020 to discover that he is literally the last man left on earth. The show follows his misadventures as he travels throughout America in search of survivors. (Spoiler alert: He finds them.)

In an effort to promote the show, Fox has been placing branded Last Man on Earth vending machines in a number of different cities across the country, and announcing the machines’ locations on Twitter. If you’re reading this today (March 21, 2015) and you happen to be in Austin, you’ll find a machine at 500 E. Cesar Chavez Street.

It's the LAST DAY of the #LastStuffOnEarth vending machine!

At @sxsw? Go to 500 E. Cesar Chavez St! #lastmanonearth pic.twitter.com/zA8kA3bRAM

— Last Man On Earth (@OfficialLMOETV) March 21, 2015

The machines, of course, are loaded with prizes. In order to score one, Twitter users first have to follow @LastManFOX, and then tweet a photo of themselves in front of a LMOE machine, tagged with the #LastStuffOnEarth hashtag. A unique code is then sent to the user’s Twitter account, which can then be used to redeem something out of the machine.

And while most of the prizes seem fairly low-rent — LMOE-branded first-aid kits and sweatbands, for instance — the machines are apparently also stocked with things like a $250 American Airlines gift card. The LMOE machine, by the way, hasn’t yet made an appearance in Philly, but we continue to hold out hope.

Free Solar-Powered Light from the LuminAID Vending Machine

If the attention it’s received on social media is any indication, the incredibly generous LuminAID machine has been one of the most popular vending stops at SXSW this year.

The two women who developed LuminAID appeared on ABC’s “Shark Tank” recently, but if you’re not familiar with the product, it’s essentially a lightweight, waterproof, inflatable bag that uses solar power to give off 16 hours of LED light. (The LuminAID was developed for use in disaster zones, and in developing countries where electricity outages can be a regular occurance.)

A LuminAID vending machine at SXSW was giving away free solar light packs to anyone who tweeted to the company’s @LuminAIDLab account. And if I’m not mistaken, for every light dispensed from the SXSW machine, the company will be donating a second free light to someone in need.

https://twitter.com/former_case/status/578314153158279168

Pepsi’s Fortunetelling Vending Machine

As the “official carbonated soft drink partner of SXSW” for seven years running, Pepsi tends to show up in Austin with something weird and unusual each year. For 2015, the brand’s marketing installations included a vending machine that used 3D Kinect technology to dispense fortunes and invites to “exclusive experiences,” according to a piece by Vending Times‘ Emily Jed. We haven’t seen any photos of the machine, but we’d love to. If you have any good shots you’d like to share, you know how to get in touch.

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 So … what did we miss? We mentioned the Drafthouse Films DVD vending machine and HBO’s House of Thrones machine in a post last week, but there certainly must have been other unusual vending experiences to be had at South By 2015. If you were there and saw a machine worth talking about, we’d very much like to hear from you (especially if you have photos or video).

Coin Wire: The Week in Vending Innovation

Philadelphia’s chapbook vending machine

Here at Coin Control headquarters (which, in case you’re curious, is located in an off-the-grid bunker some 160 feet below sea level in a formerly abandoned limestone mine somewhere in South Philly), we spend a ridiculous amount of time on Twitter, searching for breaking news, hi-res photos and bon mots about the latest goings-on in the wonderful world of vending machine innovation.

However, we also have a full-time day job, and therefore lack the resources to pen deeply-reported longform stories about every piece of fascinating vending news that comes our way. Which is why we’ve decided instead to launch Coin Wire: a regularly-appearing news roundup that takes a quick look at the most interesting vending developments of the previous week or two.

Enjoy, and if you have any bright ideas regarding a better name for these installments (we’re not exactly married to ‘Coin Wire’), please do let us know.

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The Campbell’s Snackbot

We’ll kick things off this week with the story of the Snackbot, a clever interactive vending machine that you, fair reader, will almost certainly never have the opportunity to use. That is, unless you happen to work at the Campbell’s Soup Company World Headquarters in beautiful Camden, N.J., where the Snackbot was recently installed in the employee lunchroom.

Developed by the Allen & Gerritsen agency, and essentially an interactive trivia game that rewards winners with free snacks and consumer electronics, the Snackbot was conceived by Campbell’s because “the soup company wanted to test its employees on Campbell’s history so they could better talk about its products,” according to an article on Digiday. The machine apparently quizzes employees on everything from Campbell’s Soup Company history to current food trends.

If you’re interested in the geekier side of robotics, or the engineering process required to transform a “dumb” vending machine into a smart, interactive unit, you’ll want to check out this Snackbot Case Study on the Allen & Gerritsen website.

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Vending at SXSW

The annual music, film and tech festival known as South by Southwest kicked off last Friday in Austin, Texas. The event, which runs for 10 days straight, has for years now been considered something of a marketing Mecca for big brands, especially given the demographic SXSW attracts and the massive press attention it inevitably garners. As a result, it’s played host to a number of hugely innovative vending machines, most of them of the ‘marketing stunt’ variety.

In 2014, for instance, Oreo partnered with Twitter and Pittsburgh’s Maya Design to create the Oreo Trending/Vending Lounge, which offered edible, 3D-printed Oreos that were customized according to trending tweets that were marked with a specific hashtag. (That’s insane.)

Then there was the SXSW live music stage that had been decked out to resemble an enormous Doritos vending machine. It had apparently earned such a strong love-hate relationship with longtime festival-goers that something of a faux outrage erupted online when media outlets announced it wouldn’t be making an appearance this year.

Sadly, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of play happening on the vending field at SXSW ’15. (Although we’d love to be proven wrong, so please get in touch if you’ve seen anything interesting.) An indoor installation devoted to all things Game of Thrones, however, is apparently housing a vending machine (as seen below) that’s offering GoT soundtracks … or something.

The Game of Thrones vending machine at SXSW

Austin’s Drafthouse Films — the distribution arm of the beloved Alamo Drafthouse Cinema — has also been showing off an interesting machine this week, although from what we can tell, the machine has been around for awhile. It sells arthouse film DVDs, including selected releases from the Criterion Collection. Classy!

The Drafthouse Films DVD vending machine

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Vladimir Putin in a Box at the Airport

We couldn’t find much information about this one, but still, it’s just too good not to share. At Moscow’s Sheremetevo International Airport, there appears to be a vending machine offering nothing but T-shirts and cell phone covers emblazoned with the visage of Vladimir Putin himself. (Can anyone decipher the Russian text on the machine for us?)

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Social Vending in the Emirates

Here’s another international story that’s sadly lacking in contextual details. At a popular annual food festival in the United Arab Emirates known as Taste of Dubai, a company called Lurpak Arabia — they’re apparently the Middle East’s leading butter manufacturer — was giving out prizes from a very snappy looking Twitter-enabled vending machine last week. In an effort to win freebies, festivals goers who took a selfie in front of the machine could tweet it out with various handles and hashtags attached. Take a look at the lucky fellow below, who went home with a brand new iPhone 6.

Thanks #LurpakArabia for the iphone 6 wish you all the best pic.twitter.com/SmKDKaFAPn

— Sam Si (@SamSimSah) March 13, 2015

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A Chapbook Vending Machine Reappears in Philadelphia

And finally, right here in Coin Control’s hometown of Philadelphia, a scrappy publishing start-up known as The Head & the Hand Press held a reading last week to celebrate the arrival of their chapbook vending machine at a Center City cafe, the uber-trendy Elixr Coffee Roasters.

The Head & the Hand’s machine, which sells literature and poetry chapbooks at $2 per, was actually first installed at Elixr back in late 2013. After a brief run it was moved to a nearby restaurant, and then to a charter high school known as the Science Leadership Academy.

We’ll be running a brief write-up about the event, which featured readings from four different authors, a little later this week. And incidentally, the story of how H&H founder Nic Esposito decided to sell chapbooks out of a vending machine in the first place is actually pretty amusing, so check back in a few days if you’re interested in hearing it.

In Reading, Pa., there’s an art vending machine that benefits homeless pets

I haven’t said a whole lot here on Coin Control about my undying love of animals—this is, after all, a blog about the brilliance of vending machines, and not an animal site. But I have to say that I couldn’t have been happier when an animal-related vending story popped up in my news feed on Sunday afternoon.

The story takes places in the small town of Birsboro, Pa., which sits about eight miles southeast of Reading. Not too far from Coin Control HQ, as it happens. (We’re based in Philadelphia.)

There in Birdsboro, at 58 Kennel Road, is the Animal Rescue League (ARL) of Berks County, which is home to all sorts of adorably adoptable dogs, cats, farm animals, and other assorted critters.

This past weekend, the ARL unveiled an art vending machine that, just like Clark Whittington’s legendary Art-o-mat creations, was built from a retired cigarette machine.

Roadside Lights: Vending machines illuminate winter nights in Japan

[Press Release]

Hokkaido, JAPAN—”In Hokkaido, vending machines illuminate the snow-swept nights with a numinous glow,” says noted Japanese photographer Eiji Ohashi, who takes capture landscape images of vending machines during snow-swept nights.

Vending machines typically conjure up images of brightly colored pieces of equipment, yet Ohashi’s landscape photographs capture an exquisite world of black and white. Coca-Cola Japan, with the largest number of installed vending machines in Japan, presents a special online Coca-Cola Journey Japan exhibition.

In New Jersey, a public library loans books with the help of a vending machine

Here’s a fantastic story that unfortunately didn’t seem to get much online mileage last week: In New Jersey, the Trenton Free Public Library last week introduced a book vending machine that dispenses its product not when coins or bills are inserted, but rather when a library patron swipes a library card in front of an electronic reader that’s built into the machine. The machine, in other words—which appears to be a repurposed snack machine—is essentially a miniature branch of the Trenton Library in a box.

The Artomaton, an art vending machine, pops up in Oxford, Miss.

The Artomaton, courtesy of YAC

Unless you happen to live somewhere in the Southern United States, you probably missed the recent article about the financial investment Mississippi has lately been making in that state’s creative economy. It appeared last week in the (Miss.) Clarion-Ledger.

The nut of the story reveled that in 2011, the Mississippi Development Authority funded an extensive survey in which over 60,000 Mississippians employed in the creative economy were interviewed.

From the article:

The 60,704 employed in the creative economy represented 2.5 percent of the state’s population over the age of 25, according to census data.

When the state revisited its study in 2014, they discovered the $955 million contributed by the creative economy represented 3.2 percent of the state’s $101.5 billion gross domestic product.

Partly as a result of the study, Gov. Phil Bryant named 2014 “the year of the creative economy” in Mississippi, which led to a scramble among various arts organizations “to secure grants and funding for programs to make the state’s artists more business savvy.”

And here’s where the vending angle comes in:

Fred Perry tennis shirt vending machine appears in Singapore

Last week, the Singapore outpost of Fred Perry—the British clothing brand that was first widely embraced by 1960s Mods—launched its very own vending machine.

This is reportedly the first time in the company’s 63-year history that it chose to embrace the vending machine concept, and what a gorgeous machine it is: As seen in the photo above, the custom-wrapped royal blue box is covered in the enormous laurel wreath logo Fred Perry is famous for. According to some reports we’ve seen online, the machine sold both new and classic versions of the Fred Perry tennis shirt for about $120 each.

Breathalyzer vending machines appear in Delaware bars

Imagine yourself in a scenario like this: It’s nearly two o’clock in the morning, and you’ve just spent the past five hours guzzling down pitchers of cheap beer and doing shots of Jägermeister at a suburban bar. Your speech is a little slurred. Your gait is a bit wobbly. The bartender’s shouting something about closing time, and you’ve got a three-mile drive home ahead of you.

In a perfect world, you’d call a cab. But in reality, that doesn’t happen all too often. Which is probably why 10,322 people were killed in alcohol-impaired automobile accidents in 2012, according to the CDC, who also tell us that an alcohol-impaired death happens every 51 minutes in the United States.

A Florida-based company with the rather unfortunate name of Blo Dad & Sons, however, is hoping to reverse that trend by having its breathalyzer vending machines installed in bars throughout the United States and abroad. Blo Dad’s current flagship product is the (also unfortunately named) Boozelator 5000, which first hit the American pub market in January 2014. An earlier model, the Boozelator 3001, has been around since September 2010.