The Light-Up Water Machine

Given where I spend most of my time each week, I tend to catch a few meals a day from a cafeteria on-site. It’s not much different from any other cafeterias that I (or you for that matter) have seen. If you’ve seen one, you’ve seen them all.

I try to avoid soft drinks whenever possible and usually opt for water instead. All of the cafeteria’s six or seven soft drink machines have little levers on them for water, but I’ve noticed that hardly anybody seems to use them.

At the front of the cafeteria, surrounded by ads glorifying water, rests a massive grey box with one soul function - to dispense water. It’s a pretty good size for what it does and a little blue light shines on your water as you’re filling your cup. Of course, the water is indistinguishable from the water that comes from the little water levers on the six or seven soft drink machines.

I’d be willing to bet that, if you cracked open this water machine of mystery, most of it would just be a plastic case that houses air. Still, it’s not uncommon to have a line of five or six people waiting to get water from a box that is about three feet away from another box that has the same thing available in unlimited supply (with no line) - minus the little blue light of course.

Does your product or service have some kind of blue light of its own? Do people line up to get whatever it is you’re offering when they can just as easily find something similar somewhere else?