IPIFINI lets you choose your own cola - after purchase [Update] | Something You Might Be Interested In

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IPIFINI lets you choose your own cola - after purchase [Update]

Food

Wed, Mar 29th, 2006 | 8:23am | Food

The number of cola combinations has quickly grown. There's the usual regular or diet, and then the more recent variations like lime, cherry, vanilla, caffeine-free, and a million others. The list doesn't apply to just cola either, as evidenced by Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper. But what if you want to experiment with flavors, or select something based on whatever your taste is at any given moment? A company called Ipifini has your solution. Their "programmable liquid container" product allows you to select your combination of flavors, colors, and amount of caffeine in your beverage just before you drink it, but after you purchase the product. How? Little buttons that contain the additives are located on the surface of the bottle, so you can add just the ones you want. The buttons could contain flavors, colors, and/or caffeine.

From Ipifini's site:

For example, a programmable cola bottle with buttons for lemon, lime, vanilla, and cherry flavors as well as a caffeine button allows for 32 combinations of soda. A programmable paint container with 20 pigment additive buttons allows the consumer to select from one million paint colors. The technology is described in a robust patent application filed by IPIFINI.

Sounds pretty awesome, though it'll be interesting to see if the additives really mix as well as they would have if they were added in processing. If this works as expected, I think these bottles will really take off very quickly as it is a simplification for companies in both processing and brand marketing, and it gives the consumers a lot of choice.

Update: IPIFINI has provided me with a video of their bottle in action. You can see how the button causes the additive to shoot into the drink. It may take a second to load, as the video is 5MB.

Submitted by niraj | 14 comments

To reply to a specific comment, find it below.

From IPIFINI
Posted by: Anonymous on Mar 28th, 2006 | 2:52pm

Thanks for the nice write-up.
The mixing works quite well as the button shoots the additive into the container. I have a video if you want

tw@ipifini.com

[Untitled]
Posted by: dave on Mar 28th, 2006 | 4:14pm

I really like their company name, although I didn't notice it the first time I read the story.

Also I wonder how TW found this article, since it's not searchable yet on Google or Google news, I'm guessing he saw traffic was going to the press release from this site.

[Untitled]
Posted by: niraj on Mar 28th, 2006 | 4:17pm

Yes, it's an interesting name, and it's actually IPIFINI with the first part in bold as seen in their press release.

[Untitled]
Posted by: dave on Mar 28th, 2006 | 4:27pm

What's the point of the bold, and purple in the logo. Unless they do work on IP address it seems unnecessary.

Thanks!
Posted by: niraj on Mar 28th, 2006 | 4:15pm

I appreciate the comment and plan to follow-up to get the video of the bottle in action.

Loyalty to a Brand
Posted by: dave on Mar 29th, 2006 | 10:40am

This is just my 2 cents. But I have a hard time believing that this will ever catch on. While it makes perfect sense, there is an inherent brand loyalty in consumers, and when they want a cherry cola, they like all of the associations they have with that brand.

They don't want to see the additive shoot into the drink, they don't want to see behind the curtain. They like the idea of secret recipes, not I can make whatever flavor I want out of shooting chemical X.

New Coke failed not because it didn't taste good (taste tests showed that people liked it better than coke) but because people were loyal to Coke.

So even if this thing can replicate the same vanilla experience as a Vanilla Coke, people won't have the attachment to the new bottle.

Also, I'm guessing you can't stock it in vending machines because when it would rattle around, all the buttons would go off.

Although I do see a potential with just the caffeine button. I think this is a great idea. Sell Mountain Dew with an extra caffeine button. Young people like the idea of taking things a step further, and if they can make their drink have more energy, that would be cool. But don't try and complicate it with other buttons.

[Untitled]
Posted by: niraj on Mar 29th, 2006 | 11:08am

I partially agree with you, but think that just means it'll take longer to adopt, but will catch on. The thing is it'll catch on with many but not all. If I like Coke the way it is, I may still just want Coke the way it is.

But I'm sure there's plenty of people thinking, what if I want to try Cherry Vanilla Coke? Or Cherry Lime? Coke can only create and brand a small number of variations because anything more, while possibly liked by a niche, are not worth the marginal profit increase.

So I don't think this will fully replace the whole Coke line-up (of course all of this applies to Pepsi and other colas as well), but I think it may allow them to reduce the number of individual variations (Vanilla, Cherry, Lime) and brand this as Coke Choice or Coke Extra or something.

I like the interactive part of it, but suspect it wouldn't be as exciting in something like Coke where you wouldn't really see the flavors mix since it's so dark already.

[Untitled]
Posted by: dave on Mar 29th, 2006 | 11:17am

That's another good point. Colas dominate the market. But they are so dark, that it would be hard to enjoy the shooting action of my lime button. And people want their colas to be dark, remember Crystal Pepsi?

Coke Choice(TM) could work, but I wonder if Coca-Cola would be willing to spend a lot on this new bottle.

Also, I trademarked Coke Choice so we can become bajillionaires.

[Untitled]
Posted by: niraj on Mar 29th, 2006 | 11:21am

Good call. Yeah, that Crystal Pepsi was such a dud...I think I remember all sorts of stories on how harmful whatever chemical was making the liquid clear was. Probably renders you sterile in a few hours and dead a few hours after that.

$$$$
Posted by: junosand on Mar 29th, 2006 | 11:54am

I haven't heard something mentioned yet about this. How much will a bottle cost? It seems like it should cost a lot more because of the mechanisms and all of the different additives in the bottle. Money talks.

And I heard a long time ago that cola makers artificially make their colas brown because people like it better.

[Untitled]
Posted by: dave on Mar 29th, 2006 | 12:25pm

Hmmm... a comment about money. Let's see, your comment isn't coming from the US. Where could it be coming from?

The IP in IPIFINI stands for Intellectual Property
Posted by: Anonymous on Jun 3rd, 2006 | 7:10am

Somebody asked why the IP was highlighted in purple.

[Untitled]
Posted by: Anonymous on Jul 19th, 2006 | 10:38am

I was wondering where to buy your programmable water at. I think it is a great idea.

[Untitled]
Posted by: niraj on Jul 19th, 2006 | 10:46am

Anonymous, at the time I wrote this, the company was starting to license the new technology and I am not aware of any products on the market yet that offer this. Feel free to correct me on that.