10 ms·

Papa Johns Can Predict When Your Fridge Is Empty

50 points by WaitWaitWha 3mo ago

Cshaya 3mo ago
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
- hx8 2mo ago
  It's just good utilization of marketing budget.
  - cwmoore 2mo ago
    sed -E “s/good\s//g”
- autoexec 2mo ago
  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.
al_borland 3mo ago
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.
- AndrewKemendo 3mo ago
  Isn’t that the default though? 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? Stores seem plenty full to me.
  - al_borland 3mo ago
    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.
    - AndrewKemendo 3mo ago
      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
gdulli 3mo ago
Every fridge between mine and the nearest Papa Johns would need to be empty before I'd consider eating there.
dlcarrier 3mo ago
[flagged]
- xmcp123 2mo ago
  Not all condiments actually go bad when they expire though. I’m convinced somewhere there’s perfectly edible ketchup from the dinosaurs era somewhere.
  - rootusrootus 2mo ago
    Especially when kept in a fridge, since ketchup is shelf stable. In the fridge it should go well past the pull date.
    - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 2mo ago
      Ketchup is vinegar-based. I don't think it makes much of a difference.
      - dotancohen 2mo ago
        The ketchup doesn't go bad, but the plastic container offgasses directly into the ketchup and also into the air void above the ketchup.
        tomjakubowski 2mo ago
        > into the air void above the ketchup. Somebody at Heinz packaging department should be working on a ketchup syringe.
  - netsharc 2mo ago
    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... No AI needed though, so, not sexy...
- 2mo ago
subygan 2mo ago
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? [1] https://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html https://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html
- autoexec 2mo ago
  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-class-action-suit-for-alleged-barrage-of-spam-texts/ 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.
morkalork 2mo ago
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.
- Grombobulous 2mo ago
  Half decent data privacy laws are wildly overdue. My other thought is that companies like Papa John’s that make shitty products are most likely to engage in desperate growth tactics like this. You know what helps tempt people into ordering pizza? Making good pizza. The problem is that it’s cheaper to purchase analytics and serve an ad for “pizza” at the literal moment the viewer is out of groceries. I wonder if their fancy analytics can also tell them how many of these customers regret not just buying groceries after they finish their Papa John’s.
- autoexec 2mo ago
  > 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.
  - morkalork 2mo ago
    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?
    - autoexec 2mo ago
      > I believe we're at the point where living in modern society and dodging these abusive EULAs is nigh impossible. You're not wrong but I can't help but wonder if we'd be at this at the point in modern society now if we'd been smart enough to avoid signing up for services that promised up front to be abusive long before the practice was so widespread and unavoidable. Instacart started 14 years ago. It wasn't an essential or unavoidable service. Why should corporations treat us any differently if we keep telling them that this abuse is acceptable to us and then reward them for it?
autoexec 2mo ago
> 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.
- tailscaler2026 2mo ago
  Their founder really doesn't like black people either. Do not support Papa Johns. Plenty of other choices for shit pizza. [1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-44803163 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-44803163
  - galleywest200 2mo ago
    Unless it is the ones in Atlanta because I believe Shaq owns those.
  - charcircuit 2mo ago
    Your source does not back up your claim. The founder said he didn't use the slur.
    - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 2mo ago
      He doesn't. I think you misread this passage (it's the only thing that comes close): > When discussing how he would distance himself from racist groups, Mr Schnatter said that Colonel Sanders, the founder of KFC, had never faced criticism for using the N-word, Forbes reported.
      - autoexec 2mo ago
        It's worth pointing out that there's no evidence that Colonel Sanders ever did that. It's not as if he was directly quoting someone. Even if he really wanted to bitch about how unfair it is that someone else was able to be racist without being called out for it, he could have phrased that in any number of other ways. Schnatter was just spewing bullshit and threw out that slur without any reason for doing so.
frereubu 2mo ago
> 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.
frereubu 2mo ago
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 https://archive.is/CUo8O
- deleted 2mo ago
  [deleted]
deleted 2mo ago
[deleted]
conartist6 2mo ago
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?
- deleted 2mo ago
  [deleted]
- lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 2mo ago
  Trying to teach people to garden.
nitwit005 2mo ago
> 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.
alexpotato 2mo ago
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. 0 - https://amzn.to/4y4Riot https://amzn.to/4y4Riot 1 - https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/08/13/big-med https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/08/13/big-med
weare138 2mo ago
That's alot of time, cost and effort just to avoid making better pizza.
solarkraft 2mo ago
Alternative framing: Instacart sells data to Papa Johns for better pizza ad timing. Papa Johns isn’t somehow able to predict this based on their own data (which is the impression I initially got from the headline), they are buying it from Instacart. Name and shame.
yieldcrv 2mo ago
correct: how to be creepy without being invasive

50 points by WaitWaitWha 3mo ago

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

hx8 2mo ago
It's just good utilization of marketing budget.
- cwmoore 2mo ago
  sed -E “s/good\s//g”
autoexec 2mo ago
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.

al_borland 3mo ago

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.

AndrewKemendo 3mo ago
Isn’t that the default though? 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? Stores seem plenty full to me.
- al_borland 3mo ago
  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.
  - AndrewKemendo 3mo ago
    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

gdulli 3mo ago

Every fridge between mine and the nearest Papa Johns would need to be empty before I'd consider eating there.

dlcarrier 3mo ago

[flagged]

xmcp123 2mo ago
Not all condiments actually go bad when they expire though. I’m convinced somewhere there’s perfectly edible ketchup from the dinosaurs era somewhere.
- rootusrootus 2mo ago
  Especially when kept in a fridge, since ketchup is shelf stable. In the fridge it should go well past the pull date.
  - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 2mo ago
    Ketchup is vinegar-based. I don't think it makes much of a difference.
    - dotancohen 2mo ago
      The ketchup doesn't go bad, but the plastic container offgasses directly into the ketchup and also into the air void above the ketchup.
      - tomjakubowski 2mo ago
        > into the air void above the ketchup. Somebody at Heinz packaging department should be working on a ketchup syringe.
- netsharc 2mo ago
  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... No AI needed though, so, not sexy...
2mo ago

subygan 2mo ago

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? [1] https://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html https://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html

autoexec 2mo ago
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-class-action-suit-for-alleged-barrage-of-spam-texts/ 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.

morkalork 2mo ago

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.

Grombobulous 2mo ago
Half decent data privacy laws are wildly overdue. My other thought is that companies like Papa John’s that make shitty products are most likely to engage in desperate growth tactics like this. You know what helps tempt people into ordering pizza? Making good pizza. The problem is that it’s cheaper to purchase analytics and serve an ad for “pizza” at the literal moment the viewer is out of groceries. I wonder if their fancy analytics can also tell them how many of these customers regret not just buying groceries after they finish their Papa John’s.
autoexec 2mo ago
> 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.
- morkalork 2mo ago
  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?
  - autoexec 2mo ago
    > I believe we're at the point where living in modern society and dodging these abusive EULAs is nigh impossible. You're not wrong but I can't help but wonder if we'd be at this at the point in modern society now if we'd been smart enough to avoid signing up for services that promised up front to be abusive long before the practice was so widespread and unavoidable. Instacart started 14 years ago. It wasn't an essential or unavoidable service. Why should corporations treat us any differently if we keep telling them that this abuse is acceptable to us and then reward them for it?

autoexec 2mo ago

> 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.

tailscaler2026 2mo ago
Their founder really doesn't like black people either. Do not support Papa Johns. Plenty of other choices for shit pizza. [1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-44803163 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-44803163
- galleywest200 2mo ago
  Unless it is the ones in Atlanta because I believe Shaq owns those.
- charcircuit 2mo ago
  Your source does not back up your claim. The founder said he didn't use the slur.
  - lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 2mo ago
    He doesn't. I think you misread this passage (it's the only thing that comes close): > When discussing how he would distance himself from racist groups, Mr Schnatter said that Colonel Sanders, the founder of KFC, had never faced criticism for using the N-word, Forbes reported.
    - autoexec 2mo ago
      It's worth pointing out that there's no evidence that Colonel Sanders ever did that. It's not as if he was directly quoting someone. Even if he really wanted to bitch about how unfair it is that someone else was able to be racist without being called out for it, he could have phrased that in any number of other ways. Schnatter was just spewing bullshit and threw out that slur without any reason for doing so.

frereubu 2mo ago

> 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.

frereubu 2mo ago

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 https://archive.is/CUo8O

deleted 2mo ago
[deleted]

deleted 2mo ago

[deleted]

conartist6 2mo ago

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?

deleted 2mo ago
[deleted]
lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 2mo ago
Trying to teach people to garden.

nitwit005 2mo ago

> 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.

alexpotato 2mo ago

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. 0 - https://amzn.to/4y4Riot https://amzn.to/4y4Riot 1 - https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/08/13/big-med https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/08/13/big-med

weare138 2mo ago

That's alot of time, cost and effort just to avoid making better pizza.

solarkraft 2mo ago

Alternative framing: Instacart sells data to Papa Johns for better pizza ad timing. Papa Johns isn’t somehow able to predict this based on their own data (which is the impression I initially got from the headline), they are buying it from Instacart. Name and shame.

yieldcrv 2mo ago

correct: how to be creepy without being invasive