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Microsoft Will Stream Ads To Grocery Carts
dptalia writes "Later this year, at ShopRite supermarkets in the eastern US, Microsoft will be rolling out computerized shopping carts. These carts will allow people with a ShopRite card to enter their shopping list on the ShopRite site from home, and then pull up the list on their grocery cart when they swipe their card. The new carts will also display advertisements depending on where in the supermarket the cart is, using RFID technology to help locate it."
Couldn't have said it better myself.
Amazes me, the shit that people will support. Give them a credit card and they'll buy their own golden cage and cheerfully lock themselves inside.
ObCaptcha: "Stress".
...Will they be more streamlined for my shopping-cart races?
The gas station on my way home from school has something similar. It blares audio only ads, but it has a mute button on it so I have no problem. Hitting the mute button has been as much of my gas pumping routine as hitting "no" for that car wash they are always trying to pimp.
Advertising has ALWAYS been with us. When commerce became viable the person selling something has always had to attract people to buy their wares. Not just the actual product but to buy it from them.
And it works, you fall for it too. How else do you know it was a SHELL gas station? If you were imune to it and not a sheep you would just tank at any gas station. (but without any advertising whatsoever, how would you know it is a gas station?) You obviously saw Shells adversting, yes even the sign that says Shell is part of advertising.
So feel all high and mighty, the advertisers know your kind and they target you most succesfully.
As for saving cards, good don't use them. Supermarkets are sure to care that they do not have to give you that discount. Teach them a lesson, pay more!
However I wouldn't be too worried, I seen these things before. They come and go and I am still shopping in pretty much the same ways as I did 30 years ago. Nothing changes, LCD displays on shopping carts? Those highly expensive shopping carts that already dissappear left and right? Wait until they are faced with replacing a few dozen lost carts, then it is back to the cardboard display.
About the only chance I seen stick is that vegetables and such are now weiged at the checkout, that shopping carts have a deposit system (50 cents for a cart that costs far far more) and that we switched from checks to pin (electronic payment). Advertisement is still on pieces of paper, exactly the same as when I was a little kid, and when my parents were kids and their parents were kids.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Finally! I was getting sick of only experiencing advertisements on television, radio, newspapers, magazines, websites, video games, Tivo menus, Xbox 360 menus, Comcast guide screens, airplane TVs, billboards, T-shirts, sweatshirts, hoodies, movies, movie theater lobbies, stock cars, buses, bus stops, park benches, taxicabs, license plate holders, restrooms, posters on airport and train station walls, checkout lanes, grocery carts*, and shaved into the back of the occasional head.
Thank GOD somebody has found a way to exploit this obvious adver-hole in our lives. But this is only the beginning, dammit. I want my dishwasher to leave streaks on my dishes in the shape of a Whirlpool logo. Red traffic lights should be replaced with reminders that Goodyear tires would help you stop more quickly, and green with reminders to buy Amoco Ultimate gasoline. Each light bulb should cast the logo and name of a popular pharmaceutical against the floor, ceiling, or wall (talk to your doctor about it!). When I'm calling somebody on the phone, I shouldn't have to listen to some boring "ring" sound -- not when I could hear about the virtues of Domino's pizza! We must not rest until every single person is being sold something every second of every minute of every hour of every day from every square meter of the globe. Together, we can do it.
This message brought to you by The Association of National Advertisers. Raping your eyes and ears, over and over, and you can't stop it.(tm)
* Static photos already there -- obviously insufficient
The best thing to do in such a letter is to be polite, precise, and calm. Insulting them or railing at them will just make them throw your letter away. Here's a sample letter, feel free to mangle it to your needs:
"I'm a long-time customer at Shell, and I almost always get my gas there (at your Main Street location in Los Santos) because it's so convenient for my drive to work. But ever since those flat-panel TVs have been installed out in the pump area, it's nearly unbearable to pump gas. Not only is the audio loud and distracting, but the TVs seem to cause people to take significantly longer to pump their gas (they just stand around staring at the TVs), meaning I end up waiting to get gas. As a result I've decided to start getting my gas at [insert local independent gas station here]. Maybe if the TVs are removed I might come back to Shell, but for now it's just not worth it.
Sincerely, Soandso"
And be sure you do this on PAPER, signed in pen, and mailed to their corporate headquarters. From a customer-service standpoint, this is the kind of letter companies tend to love, because 1) it's not insulting, rude, demanding, or insane; and 2) it provides actual useful feedback from actual customers. As a bonus, sometimes companies will send you free stuff, or gift certificates, or coupons, or whatever, usually worth more than the letter cost you to write and mail
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
Wow, you never leave your house to buy anything. Not exactly impressive, fatty, but I'm guessing you don't have much else to brag about.
I thought Self-Checkout lanes were ridiculous... now this. The grocery store I mostly shop at has I think six Self-Checkout lanes. Very few folks use them. The "traffic monitors" are always trying to urge folks to go there, as there is no line. I might try one if I got a discount for it (passing the savings along to customers for not having staff, etc...), but what is the point as there is no discount or incentive? I'm a bit old fashioned I guess I want to be taken care of as a customer and fully use the services the store is providing for my convenience, not theirs!
seriously. There well done. Its not all ads, there are news and wheather shorts as well. I listen to sirus radio all day and surf the web w/adblocker, so they are jsut aobut the only ads I see. And also the only local tv I see either. I have all of the day to spend with my thoughts I don't mind being entertained briefly.
...almost complete
Now if you want to see advertising at its most crass, and annoylingly blatant I suggust you look at miejers ( never know how to spell that, what the heck is a J doing in the middle of the word. Seriously.) Tv's showing ads for their products at checkup. You have to wait in line because they don't hire enough people and just stand there while they tell you how to combine three different crappy processed to hell kraft foods into some stomach turningly insane caserol that your get your kids into Harvard, and zombify your husband.
Rant
SHell is good, mjeijers bad!!
Rant complete
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Some people like to check the quality and pick produce themselves. I prefer shopping online too, but lets be honest, I don't know what I'm ordering exactly until it arrives, it could just as easily be poor quality as good.
I like muppets.
It sounds to me like ShopRite is the one doing the streaming, not microsoft.
Dude, first of all the dot com bubble ended a few years ago - It has generally be accepted that things like mail order pet shops are just not viable. Don't you want to try on shoes first - damn sizes are always screwy and feet are different widths?
Secondly, you sit in you house waiting for deliveries? - how quaint - just like the milk vendor used to in the old days. Just go to the shop and pick stuff up, why is that so hard. With the time you save not sitting around for the delivery illegal alien, you could be out saving the forests or killing wild animals for sport.
Marketing and shopping is about the experience and atmosphere, buying stuff online is for cave dwellers stuck in a bygone era - the 90's.
It's a great idea, but stores arrange their shelves and produce specifically to get people to impulse shop. That's why the candy is near the cash machines - so your kids will freak out while you're standing there waiting, in the hopes that you'll cave in and buy them the candy so they'll shut up. The less time you spend in the store, the less changes for you to impulse buy something.
Stores would never do anything that would decrease your time being exposed to their products.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
The only part of your rant that was missing was the part where you yell at the kids to get off your damn lawn.
I don't fully understand what your problem is. Savings cards? Some people like saving money, and aren't so fucking sad and lazy that they can actually _gasp_ walk to the garbage/recycling can and just throw it away? Using a card you can save hundreds of dollars a year! What fools!
I think part of this is a good idea. Being able to have your shopping list instantly seems like a good idea to me. They could even take it a step further and actually guide you to what you are looking for, instead of having to blindly hunt the aisles. For some of us, time is money, and anything that saves it is priceless. Anything that literally saves money is even better. Maybe you wipe your bitter ass with $100 bills, but some of us don't, and are willing to put up with an easily forgettable ad as compensation. Did an advertiser kill your dog and rape your mom or something?
today is spelling optional day.
Is this really any worse than shopping online? I sometimes get grocery items delivered to my home. I'm sure their security is no better than that of the supermarket.
Open source is like a British car. Not only can I get under the hood, I seem to spend a lot of time here.
Microsoft know they have a bad reputation. They'd have to totally reinvent themselves and their policies to reverse the trend, which is too much work.
I suppose their position is: "well, we're too far gone to repair our image, so we've got nothing to lose. MONEY MONEY MONEY!"
I'm a guy.
Well, we guessed that.
Do you have a wife or a girlfriend? Ask her about women's clothing sizes, especially with everything being made in 97 different countries. One week's "Small" is next week's "Extra Large" and vice versa. Every women I've known gave up on mail order because they were retuning 4 out of 5 items, and it was steadily getting worse. For some reason men's clothes don't suffer the same variance. Only $INSERT_FAVORITE_DEITY knows why.
The problem is that you seem incapable civilly stating that you shop for groceries online and that it's the best thing since sliced bread. You seem incapable of not adding insults against anyone who still likes to shop at the store for a host of valid reasons. That might be why some people suggest you might wont more social interaction because, quite frankly, you really fucking suck at it.
That's one area I wouldn't mind seeing a little bathroom graffiti/vandalism. I might even consider supplying it (but probably not). It would probably only take two or three ruined LCDs to make the owners realise it's not worth their while.