> There are two things Papa Johns doesn’t like to see
There are three things. Papa Johns also hates to see well compensated employees. They've been successfully sued several times for wage theft, they were forced to stop their “no-poach” policies which prevented franchise owners from hiring workers at other Papa Johns restaurants in an effort to keep wages down, and they insisted that if they had to provide health insurance to their workers they'd pass that cost onto consumers rather than spend a penny of the $87 million in gross profit they were making.
The assumption with that statement is that there is a net amount of money to be dispensed, and either a few highly compensated employees get those jobs or many low wage employees.
But the very fact of wage theft indicates that the employers want to keep more money in their hands, and distribute less of it. So it really just amounts to small numbers of underpaid jobs.
> The idea is to reach hungry consumers by “knowing what is in their fridge without being too creepy,” said Carrie Drinkwater, chief investment officer at Carat.
What she means is that they want to do it subtly enough so people aren't creeped out, because when it's put like that it really is creepy.
> Papa Johns’ “Empty Fridge” campaign ran from late April through last weekend on NBCU streaming supply such as Peacock, NBC Sports and NBCU content across streaming distributors. While it’s too soon to digest the results, Papa Johns knows what it’s looking for.
They have data for a full month. They know if it worked or not. They decided to make a positive press release despite it failing to increase sales.
This has been in the pipeline for a while now. This is an NYT article from 2012 talking about how Target were, well, targeting women they thought were pregnant based on their shopping habits because that's one of the few points in life when people's shopping habits are maleable: https://archive.is/CUo8O
Is this a submarine article[1] by instacart to sell their consumers data? feels like a glowing review of the data. And why would papa jhons accept to be a part of this campaign?
This is absolutely an ad and you can bet Papa Johns signed off on it. Their Chief Marketing Officer provided quotes. Adexchanger is a site about ads owned by an ad company (Access Intelligence, LLC).
If this ad campaign backfires on them it won't be the first time. They were sued for illegally spamming 500,000 people over text with ads. (https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/11/papa-johns-faces...). Although ultimately, they got away with paying out just 11 million in cash and a whole lot of coupons for their pizza to a tiny fraction of the people they spammed so maybe it was worth it to them in the end.
That sounds like an area where someone can sell a device that scans for toxins/mold/etc. Put a sample, if the machine says "Bad" then throw away, if it says "OK", then hope it's not an Elizabeth Holmes-esque shithousery...
idea is to reach hungry consumers by “knowing what is in their fridge without being too creepy,” lol I think they forgot to realize this is incredibly unsettling and creepy
Companies have been targeting people with ads when they think they're the most vulnerable for ages. What's bold about this is how not at all subtle it is. "We know there's no food in your fridge. Order a pizza!" seems like something that should make people uncomfortable.
Instacart users should be upset about their data being packaged up and sold. Or maybe there should be half-decent privacy laws that protect them. Otherwise you just get this corporate-orwellianism.
Anyways, I wonder if instacart can predict political affiliation. I bet their data scientists have at least tried.
> Instacart users should be upset about their data being packaged up and sold.
Instacart users should have been upset about that while reading Instacart's privacy policy prior to signing up and refused to use the service in the first place. Having their data being packaged up and sold was something every user already agreed to.
I believe we're at the point where living in modern society and dodging these abusive EULAs is nigh impossible.
Your credit card company, every merchant you interact with, even your employer's payroll processor all sell your data.
I guess if you work under the table cash only-jobs, only purchase items in-person, again cash only, and don't use any apps on your phone you are safe from corporate snooping?
I'm just... Confused at how any of this is good for society. YOU FUCKING KNOW when your fridge is empty.
So OK maybe some corp can reprogram you to not restock on food. CONVINCE ME THAT'S GOOD. Is it not just an attempt to make people worse? Less self-sufficient? More miserable?
I find everything about this upsetting. This level of targeted manipulation should be illegal.
It seems like the only way to avoid it is to only shop in person and to stick to mom and pop stores that can’t afford to do all these shenanigans, while also avoiding ads like the plague.
Maybe I’m rare in that what you describe is literally how I’ve always done it, but are there more people getting groceries delivered than shopping in store now?
Even in person at major chains with deep pockets, they can track habits and employ tactics to manipulate behavior.
There has been talking (maybe tests as well) of using facial recognition to manipulate digital price tags on shelves based on the buyer. Several states are already working to pass legislation to block this.
There was that widely published issue years ago of Target starting to advertise pregnancy related items to a teenage girl before her parents even found out she was pregnant. They now actively try to avoid being too targeted, to avoid the creep factor.
They’ve had video monitors at self-checkout in many stores for years now. While I heard at some stores they were just a scare tactic and not hooked up to anything, it’s not beyond the capabilities to use facial recognition at checkout to link a person to their purchases. That’s easier today that it’s ever been.
When ApplePay was rolling out, stores like Walmart were trying to push their own standard called CurrentC, blocking ApplePay. It was a QR code based payment system that would allow them to better track your purchases. ApplePay was a problem, since it generates a random number each time.
Amazon had those stores without registers that tracked uses around the store and what they grabbed. I’m sure that, and now Whole Foods purchases, are used to influence what is pushed on Amazon. That’s not too far fetched.
Almost every store these days has loyalty cards to scan, or ask you to put in your phone number. These are used to track what you buy and tie to you.
Lots of avenues, even in person, to collect and use data.
The key distinction I was making was mom and pop stores. I don’t think those are doing it, unless they are getting bought up by private equity and getting new systems deployed, which I suppose is possible. But the big chains where most people shop are absolutely doing this kind of thing, or trying hard to figure it out.
“My daughter got this in the mail!” he said. “She’s still in high school, and you’re sending her coupons for baby clothes and cribs? Are you trying to encourage her to get pregnant?”
The manager didn’t have any idea what the man was talking about. He looked at the mailer. Sure enough, it was addressed to the man’s daughter and contained advertisements for maternity clothing, nursery furniture and pictures of smiling infants. The manager apologized and then called a few days later to apologize again.
On the phone, though, the father was somewhat abashed. “I had a talk with my daughter,” he said. “It turns out there’s been some activities in my house I haven’t been completely aware of. She’s due in August. I owe you an apology.”
Even though they tried to be subtle about marketing pregnancy-related products to new mothers, they didn't go far enough.
Perhaps a graphic, on the front page, above the fold, pointing to pregnancy-related sales on interior pages of the flyer. Non pregnancy-related sales should dominate the front page.
The fact that the guy apologized was a failure on his part. He should have escalated the matter to corporate, since what they did was incredibly creepy and disgusting. The manager shouldn't have apologized either - the apology should have come from the corporate executive who authorized this plan of action in the beginning. The manager likely had zero involvement in the ad whatsoever.
Targeted advertisement (and, modern advertisement in general) should be illegal. I don't consent to having my attention stolen by these scumbags
I’ve been peripheral to these systems and yes they are pervasive even in “mom and pop.”
Increasingly they are pushed for insurance purposes to automate “loss prevention” and make it auditable and also help build cases.
If the question is how do you get away from surveillance the answer is “you don’t anymore” unfortunately.
At this point it is pervasive and there is no way to avoid it. I’ve been extremely close to surveillance systems my whole career and it’s to the point where if somebody wants to completely surveil you 24/7 they can do it very easily for very little money
There are levels to it. There is the surveillance, for security, that is what is it. What I’m more opposed to is that surveillance data turning into a revenue stream. Are mom and pop doing that as well? Or maybe the security systems they use are doing it somehow?
it's pretty easy to justify putting in cameras to catch thieves, but once you've got those cameras in, if there's a way to make money off of them, why not? The economically rational store manager wants to make as much money as they can without breaking the law.
Last week I had a self-checkout flag a clerk and present them a video of me moving some items around to ensure I wasn't trying to get away with something.
It needs to be pointed out that for food items, it's already against the law to engage in price customization if the retailer accepts SNAP, which pretty much all grocery stores do. SNAP recipients cannot be charge more than or less than other customers. If Walmart wants to charge someone 50% for a video game because their algorithm says that customer will pay it, they might be able to get away with that, but for food, no one is going to risk losing the ability to accept SNAP.
Yes, I remember this coming up when the current admin took away or limited many people's SNAP benefits, and a few smaller retailers wanted to throw them a bone, only to understand that it was illegal to do so unless they charged the lower price for all customers, both SNAP and non-SNAP. They didn't want to do that, so the SNAP recipients suffered as a result.
There are three things. Papa Johns also hates to see well compensated employees. They've been successfully sued several times for wage theft, they were forced to stop their “no-poach” policies which prevented franchise owners from hiring workers at other Papa Johns restaurants in an effort to keep wages down, and they insisted that if they had to provide health insurance to their workers they'd pass that cost onto consumers rather than spend a penny of the $87 million in gross profit they were making.
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