"Though the device itself was launched a while ago, Sony turned to Auckland-based ad agency DraftFCB to help market the product in New Zealand. And so they came up with the Bottled Walkman, which is sold from vending machines in public places such as gyms. Check out the demo video for yourself."
That's what's most interesting to me. Have we heard from anybody who's actually bought the player from a vending machine? This seems to me to be one of those cases where you don't actually need to do it to get the marketing value from it- all you need is to make a video of the idea. It's a more sophisticated form of "This Ad Was Banned!!"
I could be totally wrong, of course.
EDIT: To clarify, I'm saying I don't think Sony's actually selling their walkmans in bottles of water, they just made a video of the idea of it. Can anbody disconfirm this?
> To clarify, I'm saying I don't think Sony's actually selling their walkmans in bottles of water, they just made a video of the idea of it. Can anbody disconfirm this?
I imagine they probably have at least 1 real vending machine, but you're probably right in that the publicity of the story is worth 1000x the sales from the vending machine
I doubt it would be the best distribution method :) But it would still be a good idea to put it in some high profile vending machines even if nobody buys it from them. If you saw an MP3 player while you were off to buy some Mike n' Ike, you'd definitely remember that for later if you wanted to buy an MP3 player, and also, very importantly, you'd tell all your friends.
The video probably has a higher return on investment than actually stocking some machines with it, but I can still see it being worth it to stock some vending machines in highly visible places with it.
So you expect me to believe that a vending machine where I can buy a Coke for six quarters that I can also buy an MP3 player for 750 quarters? I am not buying it.
USPS has postal vending machines both in the office and a couple major supermarkets that eat bills up to $20. Same hardware the self-checkout machines use. Spits out $1 coins as change. So its merely four $20s, or so.
I've seen the same hardware spitting our arduinos and the like at hackerspaces. If you're worried about mechanical damage we have food vending machines at work that operate via locking sliding doors.
I remember seeing an iPhone vending machine at a tech event in SF. This was at the Moscone Center not long after the launch of the second generation though.
More easy for countries where it is supported everywhere, rather than regionally. But also possible to target vending machines in transit areas, since a lot of public transport has moved over to smart cards.
Even if you could actually buy it in your gym, what would you do with it, until you get back home and connect it with computer? Should it be pre-loaded with some MTV top-charts crap? Should someone periodically refresh the content with current music?
I think the "point" there is not that they can use it immediately, but that the placement in the vending machines aligns perfectly with their target market.
They were in a vending machine at my gym last month! Apparently the promo was only for 30 days, but in that time they did sell a few (according to the guy that works there). I saw some guys wearing them (since the gym is above the swimming pool so you can look down) and it works without a smartphone. I'm pretty sure the water is drinkable as well.
Pretty bizarre that people had to put cash in to buy it though. I don't remember there being a Eftpos terminal at all.
Strange this just popped up today though, since I haven't seen any of these vending machines around in the last few weeks.
Correct from Auckland. The advertising company DraftFCB is actually on the other end of the street where I work as well. I told the staff at the gym last night about how this had blown up in the news and they were very happy that they were 'beta testers' for this marketing experiment.
I'll hand it to Sony, they can come up with some sweet marketing campaigns.
On a side note, do a lot of people really listen to music while swimming? In college I used to do 30 minutes of laps in the pool a couple times a week. I liked doing it precisely because you couldn't listen to music and you'd have to focus on keeping good form. It was just you and the water.
My sister swims for exercise, and asked for a waterproof ipod shuffle for Christmas. I thought she was joking, but they do actually exist. Apparently they are quite popular at her pool:
I can confirm the 'waterfi' ones work as they claim. Got one for my mom since she does hours of swimming a day and said it was boring without music. The buttons apparently are very mushy (no click to let you know you pressed them) but it functions fine.
I'm surprised this isn't more popular. I have not just music but audiobooks, podcasts, videos (mostly for listening and occasional glancing) and classes, on my several water-sealed devices. It's a pain to keep up internet connectivity in the pool (wi-fi times out underwater) but with a range extender and keeping the device floating or attached to the snorkel, you can even do Netflix or other streaming.
With respect to your side note: As someone who swam competitively throughout high school and college, having the ability to listen to music while practicing is really nice. When you're practicing 2-3 hours a day, six days a week, it can make a big difference.
Along that line the pool at USC had an underwater speaker system. It was nominally to allow coaches to give input to swimmers as they were swimming but we managed to put music on it a couple of times. Fun but annoying to the other swimmers if they didn't like your music choices.
Waterproof listening devices have always been wishful thinking, but never actually implemented correctly nor have had the demand properly assessed (lots of people think they want them, but I'm not sure if they truly do)
Challenges I see:
- Cords get tangled really easily due to the nature of the sport (Solution - make them completely in ear)
- Bulkiness slows you down or at least presents issues when they fall out (see solution 1)
- There is no easy way to control volume or change the song (solution - perhaps use something in your mouth to "chew" on to change these parameters maybe?)
Swimming (especially the 3-4k I do almost daily) can be painfully dull, so the demand is sort of there, but it seems the amount of tech involved far outweighs the presumed benefit (and therefore demand).
I just keep a pair of waterproof headphones permanently attached to my swim goggles and keep it in my gym stuff. It's not nearly as big a hassle as you think - just wrap it up tightly once and you have no cords dangling or anything while you swim.
> On a side note, do a lot of people really listen to music while swimming?
Well, as far as I know this wasn't really possible without getting some expensive equipment (both player and earbuds). Not that I really searched for it, but just nobody does it (and so nobody even thinks of doing this or searches for it).
Seeing how many people listen to music in the gym or while jogging, I wouldn't be surprised if there was an uptick in listening to music while swimming now. Although, I haven't actually clicked the link yet, they may need to ship earbuds/headphones with it, and I don't know how well they work when they need to be watertight.
I would clip it to my goggle strap and swim about an hour a day 3 days a week back when I lived by a pool. The ipod shuffle really was an amazing form factor for the player as it had the clip built in which could clip to the straps.
The headphones were always a different story. You need specially made earbuds which a) use a waterproof membrane instead of a mesh for the speaker and b)fit tight enough in your ear so water wouldn't get in and fill the air chamber in front of the speaker. It took me 3 tries to find headphones that would stay in and be airtight.
I would love to be able to listen to music while swimming. I try to go a few times a few week for 20-25 min each, and it'd be great to have something to listen to.
Check out the Neptune from FINIS. It's designed similarly to jawbone and does require earbuds while you're swimming. Actually works quite well. http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00ACP3OOM (disclosure: Used to work for finis a couple of years back)
Dramatically different price point, but I've been using my Sony Xperia Tablet for exactly that. Completely submersible = NPR & email in the shower every morning. Admittedly, I take longer showers in the miserable winter of norther Vermont, so I like any excuse to stay under the hot water longer.
I sometimes stay up to 15 minutes. I like the warm water. But then I usually take my waterproof notepad with me to jot down ideas or brainstorm stuff (relaxing shower works wonders for creativity).
I got trapped in Seattle a couple years ago after some flight cancellations some former students of a colleague put me up for a few days. They had a waterproof notepad suctioned to the wall of their guest shower and each morning I would draw out detailed diagrams of locks & methods of attack. I found it was a bit frustrating to get a good transfer onto the pages, but really liked the novelty of being able to take "shower notes".
Impactful packaging, but seems gimmicky. Also, think about it from a supply chain perspective: water is heavy. Conservatively, assume the mp3 player in normal packaging is about a pound. 16oz of water is going to double that. And distribution channels for consumables is completely different from electronics. I can't imagine this is going to be widespread.
I can't imagine it needs to be; they just need people to watch the video and share the headlines on major news sites, Reddit, HN, etc. Suddenly the idea of Sony's waterproof walkman is in everybody's minds, almost free of charge. Most people will probably buy it online or from their favourite retail store.
Maybe they could ship it through the water pipes direct to your house, thus saving packaging and transportation costs, and the pesky plastic for the bottle.
Very different supply lines. Bevereages companies have many bottling facilities distributed throughout their markets, electronics companies tend to have relatively centralized manufacturing.
With low value:weight beverages, transport costs dominate manufacturing, so it is most economical to have many bottling facilities relatively close to consumers, at the cost of reduced manufacturing economy of scale. With electronics, manufacturing costs dominate transport costs, so it is most economical to centralize manufacturing, taking advantage of economy of scale.
Of course, sony could work with some drinks manufacturer to hybridize those supply chains, but I don't think there's value in doing this large scale. This is a (great!) marketing gimmick, and they can get most of the value by doing it one-off. There's not a lot of marginal value in scaling it out.
Bottled water, though, is often absurdly centralized. Dasani bottles might get filled at a relatively nearby Coca-Cola bottling plant, but Fiji's water really does come from Fiji. Despite the outsize logistics costs associated with doing so, the company still manages to make money selling it for only a couple bucks a bottle.
I get nervous about precicsion with this because there's the stuff about raising one cubic cm of water by one celcius uses one joule. But there are a bunch of caveats to that and I can't remember them.
The caveats don't apply here, because you're talking about comparing units of volume to units of volume.
So even though the volume of a given mass of water might be temperature dependent because water expands if you heat it, the the volume of a given volume of water will always be exactly equal to that volume of water. Sort of like how a foot is always exactly 12 inches no matter what the weather report says.
In fact, raising a gram of water by 1 °C uses one calory, not one Joule. Also, a cubic cm of water weights one gram, and both of those statements are full of caveats and rounding errors.
But a liter is only another name for a cubic decimeter. The liter is older, and used to vary from place to place (and even measure area at some places), but now it on the IS.
I don't think it needs to be widespread. I bet if you put this in a central vending machine in the food court of a college campus, everyone would know about it in no time.
[edit @snowman41: Yes I know "wet behind the ears" is another pun. I was asking whether "whoever came up with this" refers to the campaign or my comment.]
1. This isn't US, so those rules don't apply ("a confectionery product with a non-nutritive object, partially or totally imbedded within it, cannot be sold within the United States")
2. This may be more a viral thing than an actual packaging.
3. The water may not really be meant to be drunk, it's just a gimmick.
Paper is edible; compared to small plastic toys it's practically delectable. As long as the ink is safe for consumption then there seems little to object about.
I guess EU would require Sony to certify the player for food contact and that would be expensive enough to be not worth the trouble. Or require to wipe any suggestions that the water is drinkable.
Looks like it's become a recurring theme at Sony. They had kept Xperia Z demo phones and tablets under running tap water, at their outlets in Bangalore.
In Berlin last year, you could win a Sony phone by diving into a tank of water and fetch one from the ground. If it was a real one, you could keep it :)
What an excellent concept. Reminded me of the '80s(?) when the waterproof Timex (or was it Casio?) was displayed in fishtanks - you immediately knew what the product was capable of, as well as it becoming one of those "guess what I saw earlier" things.
I'm a Sony hardware fan and I would have bought this device in a heartbeat if it didn't have such awful battery life. It would be perfect on my bike rides but I ride all day, not less than an hour.
Happily I have a Sony mp3 player with 30 hours from a single charge.
I looked at getting one of these for the holidays, but it seems they're not held firmly into your ears during swimming sessions, according to reviews. Nice marketing though.
A few weeks ago my mate grabbed his Sony smartphone (I cannot recall the actual model since I'm clueless about smartphones), started recording a video, then threw it in the dog's water bowl. Great ten second video, including distorted sound.
Water ? lame. What about vodka? At times like this I will side with General Ripper from Dr Strangelove. He never drank water, because the commies were poisoning it to pacify the West.
Wasn't that steve jobs? At least the version I heard was steve jobs with an iPod prototype (the bubbles proved there was empty space so the ipod could be smaller)
Unless that's a different mp3 player from the one I'm thinking about, it got pretty bad reviews. It might be waterproof, but most reviewers said that once water gets in your ear you can't really hear anything.
What about the charger, warranty card, manual, etc? There is space at the top of the bottle masked by a silver band which might contain something, but surprised if you could get the charger in there.
You do realize that a lot of the HN crowd is actually much more interested in purchasing ads from ad agencies than they are in purchasing products, right? An ad for an ad agency that is fresh and innovative is very much relevant.
If they pasteurize or pressure cook the water with the player in it, I would be very impressed. That would work pretty well. Could also acidify the water aka lemonade. Doesn't take much citric acid to make water bath canning viable.
How do I know so much about canning food? I can stuff you simply cannot buy in retail stores, like brandied fruits and the like. Very tasty!
Actually, I suspect the waterproofing makes it safe.
The fear with electronics immersed in water would be some toxic substance or another leeching into the water. But the point of the waterproofing is to protect the electronics from the water, which should also protect the water from the electronics. If they do it right, it should just be aluminum, glass, plastic and rubber contacting the water. If they used a food safe rubber or plastic it's good to go.
The walkman needs to be safe for use in contact with the skin.
The water needs to be drinkable. Packaging directives look at things like phthalates in the bottle... but don't consider contents within the bottle which aren't part of the beverage or beverage serving mechanism.
So... they can, legally, pretty much do whatever the hell they want, as the Mp3 player does not need to be consumable, the water and bottle will be quantified as safe by themselves, and the thing as a whole (bottle + water) is just treated as packaging, so doesn't need to be consumable.
All in all it's the kind of thing that isn't quite covered by product safety standards, as it's so irregular.
Most of the world doesn't have those regulations. Or, in other words, cue the surprise of all the Europeans when they realize that Kinder eggs are illegal in the US.
The 'which of these is illegal in the US?' meme juxtaposing a gun and a Kinder Surprise was rather popular a while back. We picture Americans trying to swallow the eggs whole and choking, but playing with guns safely and responsibly.
That's what's most interesting to me. Have we heard from anybody who's actually bought the player from a vending machine? This seems to me to be one of those cases where you don't actually need to do it to get the marketing value from it- all you need is to make a video of the idea. It's a more sophisticated form of "This Ad Was Banned!!"
I could be totally wrong, of course.
EDIT: To clarify, I'm saying I don't think Sony's actually selling their walkmans in bottles of water, they just made a video of the idea of it. Can anbody disconfirm this?