Behold the Alexa-powered Coca-Cola Energy wall: Cursed, but beautiful
Mere days into the year 2020 and we've already been gifted a beautifully cursed object from corporate America: the Amazon Alexa-powered Coca-Cola Energy Drink wall.
Coca-Cola has debuted a new energy drink called, appropriately, Coca-Cola Energy. To share it with the world, it enlisted Amazon's voice assistant, Alexa, for a cheeky display and sample station at CES in Las Vegas.
The old guard of corporate America — Coca-Cola — and the new — Amazon — working in concert to dispense energy to visitors as they take in "Consumer" "Technology" in the grotesque capital of consumption — Las freaking Vegas — feels like a sign of the times.
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Amidst the elaborate displays of CES, visitors to the coke wall will find a swirly-lined path that guides you to an obelisk. There, you stand before a swath of red and black, preparing yourself for an energy boost beneath the convention center lights.
When you're ready, you ask Alexa ever so politely to "give me a Coca-Cola energy." Suddenly, the "O" in the word "order" becomes a circular door that slides open and — voila! — a drink appears.
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Alexa also responds to "give me a coke" or other variations on the phrase. When you ask for another energy drink right after getting your first one, Alexa declines and says "easy tiger." First Alexa tells us the weather, then Amazon employees can listen to our Alexa recordings and see where we live, and now the digital assistant limits how much free coke we get to drink? Sheesh!
The energy drink tastes surprisingly just like Coke. I am a Diet Coke devotee (at 3 p.m., it's the nectar). But apparently it's super-charged with a bunch of other stuff that Coke exec Jaideep Kibe says also includes "vitamins."
"It's an energy drink with that extra boost that you need," Kibe told Mashable. "But yeah, with the familiar, approachable delicious taste of a Coca Cola."
Alexa has been a frequent add-on to multiple brand offerings at CES this year, including a new Lamborghini. Giving your product a voice assistant boost is an easy way to make it "interactive," the holy grail of tradeshow tech.
I asked Kibe why Coke partnered with Alexa for this, and his answer was basically to make the experience fun, except he used the word "magic."
"When you think of this unique moment, both from a cultural standpoint, but also from a technology standpoint, and you think of this partnership with Alexa, and the fact that we can create just a little bit of magic to sample Coke Energy, it became the perfect fit," Kibe said.
I don't know. Maybe it's just my jittery brain talking, but there's something beautiful in an object so undeniably corporate, so designed to be digitally and physically devoured, that all you can do is soak it in.
Or in this case, drink it.
Coca-Cola Energy will hit shelves on Jan. 20. It comes in four varieties: Coca-Cola Energy, Coca-Cola Energy Zero Sugar, Coca-Cola Energy Cherry, and Coca-Cola Energy Cherry Zero Sugar.
Coke's thirsty for your money, Amazon's thirsty for your money, and we're all just so tired we'll take whatever energy boost we can get.
