Both Samsung and Coca-Cola faced structural headwinds in their respective categories — LCD margin compression for Samsung and declining vending machine relevance for Coca-Cola. Both companies needed a new growth platform that could leverage their combined assets in connected retail experiences.
Vivaldi designed the strategic framework for the uVending platform — a touch screen, wirelessly connected vending system that enabled consumer engagement, data capture, and dynamic product merchandising. The platform created a new connected retail category at the intersection of consumer electronics and beverage distribution.
Pilots showed strong consumer engagement and commercial performance. Kraft licensed the technology, validating the platform's broader applicability. The uVending initiative established the conceptual and commercial foundation for connected retail vending.
Samsung and Coca-Cola partnered with Vivaldi to design the strategic framework behind uVending, a touchscreen, wirelessly connected vending platform that created a new category at the intersection of consumer electronics and beverage retail. The platform delivered strong pilot performance and was subsequently licensed by Kraft, validating its applicability beyond the two founding brands.
Samsung Electronics is the world’s largest consumer electronics company by revenue, headquartered in Suwon, South Korea, with annual revenues exceeding $200 billion. The Coca-Cola Company is the world’s largest beverage company, operating in over 200 countries. Their joint uVending initiative represented a landmark convergence of consumer electronics and beverage retail, creating a connected vending experience designed to redefine how consumers interact with products in public spaces.
Vivaldi designed the strategic framework for the uVending platform: a touchscreen, wirelessly connected vending system that enabled consumer engagement, data capture, and dynamic product merchandising. Pilots showed strong consumer engagement and commercial performance, and Kraft subsequently licensed the technology, validating the platform’s broader applicability beyond the two founding brands.
The framework treated uVending as a single connected category rather than a partnership between two distinct businesses, which forced the design to start from consumer experience and work back into technology and product economics. By centering the touchpoint where shoppers actually interact with the machine, the platform could carry both Samsung’s display technology and Coca-Cola’s merchandising logic without one dominating the other.
Mature categories like LCD displays and beverage vending compete on margin compression and incremental product features, both of which produce limited upside. A platform creates a new category by changing the unit of value from the product to the connected experience around it, which is what allows the same companies to escape commodity dynamics and license the model into adjacent industries.
The case shows that two companies in mature categories can create more value together than apart when the partnership is structured as a platform rather than a co-marketing tie-up. The Kraft licensing outcome is the proof point: a true platform attracts licensees and partners who validate the category, which is a fundamentally different commercial trajectory than a one-off joint product launch.
