The World’s First Floating Vending Machine Campaign

Lipton Ice Tea made a huge splash with their latest experiential campaign where they placed a vending machine on the ocean waves in Cape Town, South Africa on December 18th, 2012.

Experiential Marketing agency, Stretch, helped Lipton Ice Tea promote their tagline, ‘Never Lose Your Cool’ in this fun experiential campaign by creating the first ever floating vending machine.

Prior to the campaign, Lipton Ice Tea’s Facebook page released information about a cargo ship going down and vending machines bobbing up and down somewhere on SA’s coastline. Consumers were encouraged to guess locations of the next siting of these UFO’s (unidentified floating objects). If they guessed correctly, they stood the chance of winning some very cold hard cash.

On the launch day at the Clifton 4th beach, media were abuzz including The Cape Argus & national news channel, ETV. Consumers would swim out in groups of 3 to the machine where , once aboard, they’d be sprayed with water, have their photos taken (from above and under water) and of course receive some delicious Lipton Ice Tea in the process.

After swimming back, their waterproof token would get them and their friends into the Lipton Lounge, in partnership with Clifton Lifesaving. Inside they’d be able to kick back to mellow beats, win branded beach merchandise and of course enjoy some more of the cool stuff in the process.

As the machine travelled across the country, media continued following it.