Kirin Beverage has begun rolling out “Gachaemon C,” a beverage vending machine equipped with a gacha-gacha capsule-toy function, the first of its kind in the beverage industry.
When a customer purchases one eligible product from the vending machine and turns the large dedicated handle, they receive one bottle of “Tsuyoizo! Mutekids” (“Mutekids”), a health beverage for children.
The initiative aims to accelerate growth in health-science beverages, including “Mutekids,” and improve profitability per vending machine.
By providing a gacha-gacha experience, Kirin aims to create excitement and enjoyment, while using “Mutekids” to give parents and children an opportunity to think about health while having fun together.
The dedicated handle was designed under the supervision of the Japan Gacha-Gacha Association with the aim of creating the excitement of turning a handle. It has been designed to provide a clicking sensation when turned.
“Mutekids” is available in six package designs featuring characters developed jointly with the editorial department of Monthly CoroCoro Comic, a comic magazine published by Shogakukan. The fact that an unspecified package design emerges also creates a sense of excitement and fun.
At an unveiling event held on July 29 at BUDDY Sports Arena in Koto Ward, Tokyo, where the machine has been introduced, Hiroo Yoshino, Executive Officer and Head of the Vending Machine Sales Headquarters within Kirin Beverage’s Sales Management Headquarters, expressed his enthusiasm: “We want to make vending machines not merely sales channels, but points of contact through which customers can experience enjoyment. Through this sense of excitement, we also want to newly create points of contact between parents and children and ‘Mutekids.’”
Buddy Planning Research Institute, which operates BUDDY Sports Arena, runs 10 early-childhood education facilities, mainly in Tokyo and Kanagawa Prefecture.
Daisuke Yamamoto, Director of Buddy Planning Research Institute, said of the vending machine: “The main reason for introducing it was that we felt it would provide an opportunity for parents and children to talk about health while having fun. Children who are taking on sports challenges gather at our facilities, and ‘Mutekids’ is an extremely good fit as a mechanism for supporting children’s positive feelings. We strongly hope to test it at each facility.”
The vending machine itself is also in the testing stage.
In addition to BUDDY Sports Arena, it has been installed at a total of three locations: an amusement park in Ichikawa City, Chiba Prefecture, and a batting center in Kita Ward, Tokyo. The company will compare and examine user reactions, usage conditions, and other factors.
Yoshino said: “We see this initiative as a challenge aimed at new possibilities for vending machines. Going forward, we will consider new developments while observing usage conditions and customer reactions.”
Eligible products are all 280-milliliter PET-bottle beverages: “Nama-cha,” “Gogo no Kocha Lemon Tea,” “Gogo no Kocha Milk Tea,” and “Koiwai Pure Water Apple.” To make consumers aware of the eligible products, they are displayed together in one row of the product display. All are priced at ¥200.
“For ‘Nama-cha’ in a 280-milliliter PET bottle, the recommended retail price would be ¥140. We have set a selling price of ¥200 when it is combined with ‘Mutekids,’ and we will examine the economics, including profitability, going forward,” Yoshino said.
The vending machine is “Gachaemon C,” an adaptation for beverage vending machines of “Gachaemon,” which SDRS—formerly known as Sanden Retail Systems—developed over approximately six months.
“Gachaemon” was displayed as a reference exhibit at “Gacha-Gacha Exhibition in Roppongi” in February this year. Outside the beverage sector, it was first installed nationwide at the Shibaura Parking Area on the Metropolitan Expressway on April 1, where it sells Metropolitan Expressway original goods such as magnets.
It can also sell fan-favorite merchandise and can be configured with winning and losing outcomes in its vending-machine roulette function. On “Gachaemon C,” the vending-machine roulette function is uniformly set as a winner, with “777” displayed in the price-display field.
