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Comment by michaelt | Hacker News Reader

> The company wants to engage more people with advertising [...]
> Retailers are eager to add new experiences to their physical stores. But many consumers aren't eager to change their habits — and they certainly aren't used to watching freezer-display ads.

> "People really appreciate their routines. They're not always seeking excitement," said Julio Sevilla

Has CNN introduced a parody section when I wasn't looking? Is this some sort of joke article, satirising corporate nonsense-speak and journalists blindly reprinting press releases?

This isn't a matter of shoppers being scared of "change" or disliking "excitement" - nobody is "excited" to "engage with advertising", they're just inconvenienced. This is walgreens making the shopping experience worse in the hopes of making more money.

How someone so unable to speak plainly could forge a career as a professional journalist I have no idea....

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>Cooler Screens says 90% of consumers it has surveyed prefer its digital screens to traditional fridges...

So apparently they're wildly unable to gather a representative sample of people, or have structured their survey to mislead them to an extreme degree.

Sounds like a company to stay far away from.

Or fudged up the methodology... show them a fridge with a display, ask them "does this look exciting to you?" (without context), they say "yes", "ok thank you, bye, ... next!"

Walgreens reportedly put millions into Theranos. Seems like at some level there must be a lot of pressure to be "innovative" and a lack of understanding how to do it.

Sounds like they surveyed 9 members of the marketing and MBA class team and one software person.

This comment reminds me of a brilliant commercial from many years ago, where Trident parodied the X out of Y approve meme: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xAVALXH9nxU

That 90% claim sounds like a bare-faced lie to me.

Can't lose that sweet Walgreens contract, right?

Marketing wank.

Nothing screams failure like appearing on media lying about how everyone likes you so much.

The last thing I want in a grocery store is an "experience". I just want to buy my stuff and go home.

Depends on how you define "experience". Do I want attentive cashiers that are efficient and friendly? How about clear standardized pricing to price compare? Conveniently placed workers that can direct me to the right location? Predictable product placements?

Whether you like it or not, grocery store is an experience. For instance there are considerably cheaper grocers that can fulfill many basic goods (C-Town, Dollar General, etc) but some people avoid because the "experience" is not as pleasant (lighting, color scheme, spacing, etc)

I want experience, I don't want "experience" (usually)

This is why I mostly shop at Aldi.

The store is small enough that even if you don't know the layout it doesn't take long to find something. There are only a few choices (if that many) for any given item so you generally don't even think about price-comparing on a per-ounce basis or anything like that. The cashiers are blazing fast. You are in, out, and get on with your day. No they don't stock everything but they have all the staple products you need from day-to-day.

Taking a dump is also experience, should we want advertisers to optimize that as well?

I don't think the optimization is the issue, it's who's doing the optimization and why/what purpose

Ya know, I might approve of putting ads on toilet paper. Then I can wipe my ass on their brand and flush it down the drain like it deserves. It'd be cathartic.

It's not "advertisers". It's the actual product brands.

I agree the freezer thing sounds awful and hopefully is just a failed experiment. But products and layout are optimized by the brand. Just take a look at the packaging. Pretty standard comparable size, dimensions that fit in the place they're meant to be stored, meaningful information up front, clear well printed packaging, a million other things. I don't think you're giving enough credit to how incredibly convenient and curated a trip to a modern grocery store in an economically developed country is.

The goal is to sell you more stuff obviously but 95% of the time my interests are aligned with the brand. I don't want to waste time figuring stuff out. They just make it easy for me.

Advertisers work for brands, they're humans who make ads to sell us shit we didn't ask for. Personally I don't care which brand they work for, I want them all to stop. Whether its a blatant ad for a product or a product itself being turned into an ad, its all obnoxious and wasteful

Yeah, and its worse than that. Since the brands are managed by brokers who setup sales, the facing/amount displayed on the shelf, the location on the shelf and the store, and so on.

I've seen urinals that play video ads, but not toilets. Seems like a great opportunity to increase your reach with the female demographic

Toilets have been tried. Generally you can't pee high enough to desecrate the eye-level advertisements at a urinal. Toilet advertisements are much more easily desecrated.

Wow, it almost sounds like people don't like advertising

Yes, and imagine having the “experience” of 15 minutes of commercials with your poop session! It’s a goldmine for advertisers!

I hate advertising and actively disrespect people who work in the ad industry. It’s virtually all just disinformation and behavioral modification tricks. The cigarettes for our brains in the 21st century.

Most people have their phones with them during and most don’t use ad blocker. Heck thing like insta or tiktok don’t even have adblock…

If you are on android, there are modded apks for both that completely remove ads without breaking the layout ;)

Having item A showing the price in $ per pound and then the nearly identical item B next to it showing $ per ounce is the bane of my existence.

If only there was an easy metric to convert to and from different base values.

I'm not going to stand in front of 6 selections of deli meat and use my calculator and take notes on their price conversions to determine which one to get. I'm going to accept I'll probably slightly overpay and move on with my life.

If I go in and out in autopilot, listening to my audio books, then it's not an experience. I frankly don't remember a single shopping trip.

The harder it is to run in autopilot, the more inane distractions there are, the worse the activity.

Exactly. What consumer has a desire for a “retail media company?” Gross. Especially one that’s business model is to interrupt the retail experience to inject non-value added advertising?

A consumer of Walgreen's stock, which needs something new, anything, to juice attention and move the price, since it's taboo to be a public company that just cruises along. The de facto primacy of stock performance in executive qualifications means you have a lot more fridge-screens to look forward to if the initial antipathy toward these fades into begruding acceptance the way they are predicting.

Well, there's some merit to measuring one's shopping in terms of "experience".

Well-laid out spacious store, with good lighting and non-obtrusive background music is quantifiably better than a dirty, cramped corner store with a sus-looking shopkeeper and ethnic music blaring out of tin speakers.

But, clearly, being exposed to #more# ads is not something that adds to said experience positively.

I would love to go to unkept, dirty and disorganized bazaar in Iran. Stores with owners that specialize in a couple of things. A granary for lentils. A butcher shop. A spice house. Complete contrast with Louis Vuitton store you’re describing.

Now, that’s an experience.

What's wrong with ethnic music?

Well, I was in an Indian store recently and they were playing this story from the radio, I'll admit it wasn't a pleasant experience.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-60676276

Some people can't tell an oud from a hole in the head. "Good" (in flaming hot Cheeto air quotes) grocery stores pick music to create a safe space where they won't be challenged by other music traditions. Or worse, the places where those traditions blend with Western music. Can't let little Timmy hear a 7th or he might turn out bad.

Why background music at all? I prefer shopping at places without it.

“Ethnic music blaring out of tin speakers” sounds racist because it is. Please don’t do be like that. Bad speakers are annoying but it’s annoying regardless of what musics so making it racial is not cool. Parking lot music is awful and it’s generic stuff

Online shopping during the pandemic has been pretty great for me. The biggest problem in Australia is that it's very clear the supermarket chains don't process seriously enough - i.e. random substitutions without notification are way to common.

But I miss absolutely nothing about going to a grocery store.

EDIT: in fact in general the pandemic has been pretty good at cutting the number of ads I have to see and hear daily since I've been away from high trafficked areas a lot. That sensory assault I do not miss at all.

I know this will come off a bit spicy, but this is how all of CNN's articles are written, it's just that we're way more sensitive to wording that's sympathetic to advertising. This is how the media shapes language and ultimately shapes people to tolerate the way police treat black people, how the homeless are treated, and so on and so forth.

Precious few “journalists” are journalists in any meaningful sense (I suppose we could say something similar of software “engineers,” but this is a dead horse here)

Call it fake news, propaganda, or the nice PR - but that’s what these “journalists” are. They’re not true journalists but serial killers, wearing the skin of the dying profession.

> “ How someone so unable to speak plainly could forge a career as a professional journalist I have no idea....”

Most journalists are in the ad business - imo this is why they hate Facebook so much, they’re competitors and ad supported news orgs mostly ship a crappier product.

I kinda liked it tbh. This reporter told us the story straight, got a few pull quotes from relevant parties, and called it a day.

The ridiculousness of the story sells itself. It doesn't really need professional help.

You are aware that the "excitement" came from a quote from a professor. That wasn't the reporters language? That the reporter included other quotes from people who expressed both annoyance at the presence of the ads and how difficult it was to use.

I agree these are a travesty no consumer wants, except I notice they do have a braille plaque and a button with a little grill. I presume they will speak their contents to you if you are vision impaired.

That might be nice. So, one redeeming feature.

Traditional accessibility features have always been optional. Very important if you need them, but out of the way if you don't. This obviously isn't optional. The trend these days is to hide bad motives behind good uses - like 'lock down all hardware to protect the users' or 'ban all encryption because pedophiles use it'. I'm not implying that that's what you're doing, but this is exactly the argument they are going to come up with.

Another point worth mentioning is that the startup claims that their 'targeted ad' tech is 'identity blind'. (I have visceral hatred towards targeted ads). What is preventing them from making it identity-aware in the future if it succeeds by any chance - especially given the fact that targeted ads work better when it is identity-aware? It will eventually become the real-world equivalent of online cross-site tracking, no matter what the creator claim. Never concede ground to malicious technology just because it has some purported benign uses. Let them just add a braille pad and speaker on the side for users who need it.

Surely not until they’ve spoken the contents of their ads first.

Interesting, but that makes me wonder how a vision-impaired person could even shop at a grocery store? None of the products have braille on them.

> How someone so unable to speak plainly could forge a career as a professional journalist I have no idea

they speak with the exact degree of obfuscation as is required to get their paycheque.

  > How someone so unable to speak plainly could forge a career as a professional journalist I have no idea....

The professional journalist's job is not to spread information. The professional journalist's job is to influence public opinion.

> How someone so unable to speak plainly could forge a career as a professional journalist I have no idea....

Minimum word limits throughout college, for starters.

this is what i ask about why do we need "Advertising". people do not "WANT" to see adverts, even if it is what has built technologies and paid for advancements.

i would rather stare at a blank wall with a drab white color than watch the newest variety of pizza topping by pizza hut or gilette shaving blade ad.

sure they pay to subsidize tech but i would rather pay to have them not be seen than being forced to watch.

the same is with internet. go and open any website without having ublock origin and you will be surprised or more like outraged because the ad cancer is really really bad.

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