Coca-Cola recently revealed at ad:tech that it is piloting a program with Google Wallet where consumers can use their mobile device to pay for a drink at 200 of its vending machines across the United States. The trial is aimed at consumers who don’t have cash on them but want to buy a coke. Inevitably, they will  however have a mobile device with them at all times which can be used as an alternative form of payment.

Wendy Clark, senior vice president of integrated marketing communications and capabilities at The Coca-Cola Co. in Atlanta said that “The combination of mobile commerce and location technology moves our business from the point of sale to the point of thirst. If we know where you are and that you are thirsty we can move you to the nearest outlet to quench that thirst.”

This experiment was motivated by the changing landscape of consumer engagement and the importance of interacting with connected consumers in order to spread content and create value.

In addition to Coca-Cola’s mobile efforts in the United States, the company has been increasing its presence internationally as well, with a voice transformer app that Coca-Cola’s Fanta rolled out in Europe that lets users play pranks on their friends. The conversation could then be posted on Facebook and reflected Fanta’s fun and playful image.

Coca-Cola also rolled out Chok, a mobile phone application, in Hong Kong the objective of which was to encourage users to collect bottle caps from the Coca-Cola TV commercial they were watching. Users would download the Chok app and when they saw a bottle cap fly out of the television screen at them during the commercial, they could ‘catch it’ with their mobile phone and shake it to win various prizes and rewards.

The app hit No. 1 in the charts after the launch.

“If we do our job well and we give our fans share-worthy content, then they become the salesforce,” says Wendy Clark.

source: mmresources

In order to enhance the MXit user experience in South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria, the largest mobile social platform in Africa has made the move of teaming up with Opera Software in a partnership agreement last week Tuesday. The aim of the deal is to offer Opera users in African countries one-click access to MXit services with MXit users being introduced to the Opera Mini browser through the popular chat client.

Christen Krogh, Chief development officer at Opera explains that the Opera Mini will appear under the MXit applications menu and MXit will appear on the Opera Mini browser’s start page. Both will be accessible via almost any data-capable handset.

The Opera Mini browser offers compression technology which allows for a fast Web experience at a lower price by compressing the size of pages before they are sent out to the consumer while still retaining functionality.

MXit’s CEO Alan Knott Craig says that “MXit empowers African people by helping them build community and make money via their mobile phones. We believe the alliance with Opera will bring us a step closer to fulfilling that vision.”

MXit, bought by World of Avatar back in September, has a global registered user base of 44 million, with the majority of these users residing in Africa.

source: moneyweb

Vodacom today announced a promotion which will see data costs for Prepaid and Top Up customers reduced by 87%. This promotion introduces Vodacom’s lowest per megabyte Prepaid mobile data price of 2.4c.

This data promotion launches on 7 November 2011 and will continue until 9 January 2012.

The price reduction will apply to Broadband Advanced MyGig 20 Prepaid and Top Up once-off data bundles, now priced at R499. The normal retail price of the My Gig 20 Advanced bundle is R3620. The new promotional price gives a saving of R3121.

Chris Ross, Managing Executive: Commercial Development at Vodacom says, “Offering increased value to our customers is our top priority, which is why we’re excited to offer this significant data price reduction to our Prepaid and Top Up customers.  With this promotion, we are providing our customers great value for the festive season.”

All Broadband Advanced MyGig 20 Prepaid and Top Up once-off promotional bundles purchased will be valid until the last day of the next month; thus if a bundle is purchased in November 2011, the bundle will be valid until 31 December 2011 and if the bundle is purchased in December 2011, the bundle will be valid until 31 January 2012. Bundles purchased in January 2012 will be valid until 29 February 2012.

Customers interested in purchasing unlimited Broadband Advanced MyGig 20 promotional bundles can do so through the following Vodacom Prepaid sales channels:

• Dial *111#, free from a Vodacom cellphone and follow the prompts;
• SMS “MyGig 20 Advanced” to 100; or
• Go to vodacom.co.za, click on ‘Sign in to My Account’ to register/login and follow the menu structure to purchase the promotional bundle.
• Multiple bundles may be bought in one month.

Just as I posted on LivingSocial.com coming into South Africa, we now have Facebook Deals making its entrance. If anyone thought the social buying landscape was going to be shaken up by Groupon, it seems it is only now becoming of age.

In a slightly new style of doing deals, Facebook Deals has appointed Habari Media as their official sales partner, which is said to be launching in August 2011. And that, by my watch, is in 5 days time. However, this is not going to be the “rush and buy the deal without reading the fine print and be unhappy later” kind of deal – customers are going to use a Foursquare-type check-in to earn rewards and deals alike.

There are different kinds of deals to earn:

• Individual Deals are those offering something for someone checking in – this could be a discount or an actual product/service. Imagine a free coffee for checking into a new coffee shop.
• Loyalty Deals rewards customers after a certain number of check-ins (finally something for all the Foursquare mayors in South Africa?).
• Friend Deals offer discounts to a group of up to eight friends – so this equates to the sort-of Swarm Badge effect that Foursquare has.
• Charity Deals mean that a business gives money to a cause when you check in.

The only group buying deal really is the Friend Deal, all the others would be to build awareness and loyalty. But Facebook Deals does not only generate awareness, and place feet with a merchant – they also create a loyal following. And in the end, one can imagine the kind of “sharing” and “liking” that will really place small and large businesses on the map, online and in person.

According to Habari Media, there are at this point in time “over 300 000 local Facebook users who daily check in to Facebook Places, with no incentive to do so.” The biggest eyebrow-raiser, as always: Where does Facebook Deals get a cut? So far, the only way for them to earn bucks here is on the advertising that businesses will spend on to attract people to their Places. This does not necessarily seem viable.

There are many also debates:

• How accurate is this sort of check-in? Foursquare in Africa is not accurate and I doubt Facebook Deals will be.
• How do the merchants check it? If I check into a coffee shop four times from my office and arrive on the fifth time for my loyalty cup, how would they know?
• How does one know where to check in? Will the iOS, Android and RIM Facebook apps start telling us what is around us? Or is Foursquare still going to trounce Facebook Deals in South Africa in this regard?
• What if someone wants to check in and not let others know – will this be available?
• Can merchants add their own deals? What will they add? Can offices add deals, such as on Foursquare?

Many points remain to be answered, but one thing seems sure – Facebook Deals will be in South Africa in August 2011. The questions are: Will you be using it, and will it be worth it for businesses and customers?

Tuesday, the 18th of August, Envato started thier 3 day birthday bonanza. Offering $300 worth of files for only $20, what a deal I thought to myself. So I proceeded to upload money into my theme forest account to purchase the bundle.

I started my download, all was looking good until 880mb when my download timeout (it’s a 970mb file). I couldn’t believe it, it had taken me 5 hours to get to that point and I was livid. I tried a further 4 times to download the file, but it was too late, North America was awake and they were hogging the lines with their massive speeds.

I contacted the support team offered from Theme Forest, asking them to please supply the file as 5 smaller file segments.

Today they answered my email supplying me with an apology and 5 separate links to download the files.

I must admit I was very impressed with their service and attitude towards the “little people”. Even though I live in South Africa and have a slow connection they did not discriminate or over look me. They supplied me with what I asked for with no hassle.

I just want to say Envato you guys rock!

Envato has won me over with their excellence.