Pepsi Touch Tower 2.0: Revolutionizing Beverage Dispensers

Interactive Dispenser Delivers Customized Beverage Experience

The inspiration behind the Pepsi Touch Tower 2.0 was to create a unique consumer experience that changes the paradigm of today’s beverage dispensers. The design team started from scratch, focusing on understanding the unmet needs of consumers and restaurant operators. Through consumer research and in-market observations, they identified distinct digital opportunities to provide an engaging experience that is both intuitive and quick to operate.

The Pepsi Touch Tower 2.0 incorporates many details that communicate a high level of quality, which supports the high-quality pouring capabilities. Such details include the clean flowing design, the materials and finishing options, and the use of processing techniques typically seen on modern consumer electronics. The new design also incorporates machine connectivity that allows for real-time information and custom content management.

What sets the Pepsi Touch Tower 2.0 apart from other beverage dispensers is its digital interface. It provides over 100 high-quality drink combinations from up to 12 brands and 6 flavor shots. Every detail was thoughtfully designed from the relaxed ergonomic stance, the digital experience, to the cup placement details. The result is a forward-looking design that brings fountain equipment into the next generation of digital, user-centric equipment.

The design integrates all consumer touch-points to a main front surface, quickly guiding the consumers through a vertically oriented and intuitive operational flow. It begins with the playful graphic user interface that attracts the consumer, communicates variety, and allows easy customization of one’s drink. The form clearly highlights the interaction zones in a careful ergonomic configuration, from the angle of the screen, to the visibility of the nozzle, to the location and light staging of the cup, and to the accessibility of the ADA control panel.

The main challenge was to create a new design which delivers an engaging and unique personal beverage customization experience for the consumer. The design had to focus on the consumer interaction to clearly communicate the sequence of use while deprioritizing the internal components without sacrificing mechanical, electrical, and fluidic performance requirements. It was also critical for a compact design to allow versatility of installing into unique restaurant configurations around the globe, to improve consumer traffic flow and to achieve a personal relationship with the consumer.

The Pepsi Touch Tower 2.0 was awarded Golden in A' Interface, Interaction and User Experience Design Award in 2014. This prestigious award is granted to marvelous, outstanding, and trendsetting creations that reflect the designer's prodigy and wisdom. They are venerated products and bright ideas that advance art, science, design, and technology, embodying extraordinary excellence and significantly impacting the world with their desirable characteristics.