Discussion summary
Papa Johns claims to predict when your fridge is empty, raising privacy concerns. Discussions include the ethics of targeted advertising and data sharing, with some questioning the societal benefits.
What the discussion says
- Some users find targeted ads invasive and potentially illegal.
- Others believe in traditional shopping to avoid data sharing.
- Concerns about food expiration and fridge contents are common.
- Some suggest alternative solutions like gardening.
“This level of targeted manipulation should be illegal.”
“Refrigerators contain at least 20% expired condiments, by volume.”
Join the discussion
Write your take first — we'll ask for email only when you're ready to publish.
- Hacker News
- 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 creepyby Cshaya
- > 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.
by nitwit005 - Atul Gawande, of Checkslist Manifesto [0] fame, has a great article about the Cheesecake Factory [1].
He mentions that that they have a model that can predict both guest numbers and revenue:
“We have forecasting models based on historical data—the trend of the past six weeks and also the trend of the previous year,” Gordon told me. “The predictability of the business has become astounding.” The company has even learned how to make adjustments for the weather or for scheduled events like playoff games that keep people at home."
And this was in 2012!
I highly recommend both the book and the article as both talk, in detail, about how to build systems even in very dynamic environments.
I can only imagine how accurate the models have gotten now.
by alexpotato - 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/CUo8Oby frereubu
- 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?by subygan
- 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.
by morkalork - > 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.
by frereubu - > 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.
by autoexec