Guest Post: Fun Find – “Gamified” Soft Drinks

While I am away, I am getting a little help from my friends. Emily I is an amazing runner, fitness buff and Chicago social life lover (and legal recruiter by day). Every so often after a long run, she and a few of our other gals skip the coffee and head for the fountain drinks. (Gasp!) Recently in Chicago, there has been a huge campaign for the “Coca Cola Free Style” machine. This pic is from a Michigan Ave storefront near my office.

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This machine let’s you create a combo soda (or fruit drink or spritzer) and has more than 125 combos. Some people call this the “gamification” of fountain drinks. I was nearly stumped by one of these last year at Cosi until I realized that they had all flavors of Diet Barq’s a person could ever want. [In the spirit of full disclosure, I stopped drinking diet soda of all varieties in April. I am happy to report that lemon lime seltzer is in the machine along with regular and lo-cal soft drinks, so I am still in the “game”.]

I asked Emily what she thought of these machines and she said, “OMG, I LOVE soda- just had one now.” (It was 10:00 AM!) So, Emily went to do some testing and here is her report:

Remember Diet Vanilla Coke? Yeah, it’s a distant memory for me, too. Diet Vanilla coke has been off of the shelves for years, but there’s one place you can still get it – a Coca Cola Freestyle Machine. While these fancy machines have been around for a few years, it was not until last week that I encountered one (life has been forever changed).

The opening screen lists all the available brands..

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I tend to like Coke products (Coke Zero is my favorite) .First step, click on the Coke icon and you are brought to an extensive list of flavored cokes. You can make old favorites, like Cherry or Cherry Vanilla coke. They have more “modern” flavors, such as raspberry, lime and orange. Creative minds could play around for days. However, try not to be the person holding up the line – only one user per machine.

As an endurance athlete, I fell in love with the varying Powerade zero icon. I typically prefer strawberry, but I created my own post run concoction comprised of 1/3 fruit punch, 1/3 strawberry, and 1/3 raspberry. I think it still needs some work, but it was pretty tasty.

What I adored about the freestyle machines was that it gave me the power to choose whatever flavor I wanted, not limited by the 6 or 7 that the traditional fountain machines provide. If you’re adventurous, you’ll love it. If you’re not, you’ll still get a kick out of watching other people try out the machine.

Thanks to Emily for being the taste tester! Have you tried the Coca Cola Freestyle machine yet? What’s your favorite combo? Any other neat “advancements” to report or new spins on traditional products? Please send them my way! Off to the airport and then the last stop on our trip – safari!! Bye for now! Hope to post some pics from safari!