Ticker tape vodka offers “inner flirt” opportunity

A Dutch vodka company has come up with a unique way of helping people communicate in a busy bar.

Medea, from Schiedam 1777, has a programmable neon ticker tape around the bottle allowing consumers to write their own 255-word messages.

The producers claim the LED display will encourage drinkers to “unleash” their “inner poet, inner philosopher or inner flirt”.

However, as the bottle has no spell checker, the company advises would-be lotharios to “drink and program responsibly”.

Moreover, the instructions for programming your message are not exactly simple, which may be the reason behind the ability to pre-programme up to six messages.

Schiedam 1777’s instructions state: “Step 1: Press the on/off button.

“Step 2: Press the ENTER button to enter programming mode.

“Step 3: Press the P-U (UP) to select line (1-6) to save the message in.

“Step 4: Press ENTER to confirm the line where the message will appear.

“Step 5: Press the P-U and P-D buttons to find the first character of your message, and press Enter to save after each character selection. Note: space can be found after the letter Z.

“Step 6: To finish, after you have selected the last character, wait until you see a blinking “A”, then press the on/off to save the entire message.

“You’re all set! Your message will now begin to scroll on the ticker.”

Here’s a video of the bottle in action

Medea is not the first company to make its labels interactive. Bud Light released a line of bottles that allowed consumers to write short messages using a method similar to a scratch card, that it claimed was the “latest innovation in social networking” and various beer companies have introduced labels that change colour when at the right temperature.

However, as has been pointed out, this has allowed some companies to use their own advertising to hit back at over-gimmicky products.