Coca Cola wants you to design a "virtual vending machine" in the 3D world of Second Life. Not just any vending machine though, despite a horrifying tendency for companies to mirror their real world marketing in the virtual, Coke actually want to do something interesting. They want you to design an "experience vendor" if you will. A machine that can dispense items that will enhance the Second Life experience and that residents can share with each other.
Its funny. Whenever I mention my belief that companies need to be thinking about viral, copyable, modifiable objects that residents can pass amongst each other rather than building replicas of their real world buildings and hoping people "just come", many of the folks I talk to in SL seem to vitually shrug their shoulders. It's no surprise that Coke is close to the mark though, they hired Crayon and Millions of us for this gig. Two companies that combine a lot of marketing and technical talent and are well suited to making a campaign like this work.
The winner of the design competition, whether they submit via SL, YouTube or MySpace (i've no idea on that last one..) will get to jet into California and work with the Millions of us team to build out their vision into a virtual reality.
If you're interested in learning more, Gideon from Crayon tells me there will be a press event held on Crayonville Island at 5pm SLT (PDT).
Thanks to Mark Wallace for the original tip.
