Beginning in June, if you live in Japan and go up to an Apex vending machine, you will have the option of watching a 30 second ad instead of paying for your drink. We thought that MediCafe sounded too good to be true, and it turns out that while you are watching the spot, your drink is being poured into an ad-covered cup.

Apex currently maintains about 35,000 of the machines that are priced from 70 to 100 Yen (~.60 to $1.00). That’s a lot of advertising, but isn’t that what every large American fast food/drink company already does? Why don’t we all ask Starbucks or McDonalds to give us a freebie when we become walking billboards on our lunch hour?