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I do not blame cooler screen for selling this technology to anyone. But I want everyone to consider how much it takes to bring about a technology like this to a

I do not blame cooler screen for selling this technology to anyone. But I want everyone to consider how much it takes to bring about a technology like this to a grocery store. If this is any of the big chain groceries, the manager doesn't even have the authority to put a sticker on the glass door. This was vetted by hundreds of people and none of them thought... glass? Business class tickets were purchased, hotels were booked, months of back and forth, daily meetings. Hundreds of thousands were spent on pilot programs like this one. Still no one thought... glass? In my opinion, it's a silly idea. But I applaud the person who had this silly idea, built a company around it, got deals with screens, door, glass, and cameras manufacturing companies, and then convinced a grocery chain to buy this for their store. I would really, really love to have been in that sales pitch meeting. Edit: What bothers me the most about this, is that it will actually work. Any surface where eyes may fall on, will be replaced with an ad.

tootie 5y ago
It's not a crazy idea and this likely a prototype and prone to bugs. Transparent displays have been a hot item for a while. The tech has been around for years but it's expensive and has had issues with brightness. They also need to tune the UX to be valuable and not too distracting. I think these will become ubiquitous in 10 years.
- mypalmike 5y ago
  This is not a transparent display as far as I can tell. It just renders images of what the inventory system thinks is behind it.
  - dvtrn 5y ago
    There are pictures in the tweet of completely black screens, presumably malfunctioning or otherwise “off” screens so pretty clearly (heh) not transparent.
  - tootie 5y ago
    You are correct. I've seen transparent versions of this which are pretty cool. These are just big dumb screens.
rdiddly 5y ago
It's an ad platform plain and simple; that's the whole value proposition. So I imagine every pitch, every meeting was about that. And every store that uses it will be doing it to get a cut of the ad revenue. It's true that it's lousy at being glass, but that's like saying smallpox blankets were a lousy way to make friends with Native Americans. The shittiness of it, in other words, was the goal all along, and any resemblance to glass or to helping you in any way was just a concession made to conceal its true nature and hopefully get you to accept it.
- mrobins 5y ago
  Except that moving inventory, and to a lesser extent generating repeat business, is more critical than ancillary ad revenue. If The screens don’t work or the ads aren’t effective, and I don’t open the door to get those high-margin also-bought drinks than they definitely do not achieve the store’s goal.
  - jcims 5y ago
    The shoppers are already in the store, presumably to buy from their list. Now the store gets a cut of an ad and the profit from the sale it makes. The digital delivery is going to be amazing for A/B testing of ads because they are going to have near immediate feedback. It's pretty clever in a dystopian hellscape kind of way.
    - buu700 5y ago
      Counterpoint: all else being equal, I'd rather not have these because I think they'd be annoying, so if one of my local grocery stores were to install them I would then give more of my business to the other (largely interchangeable) ones going forward. You're right that I wouldn't rage quit and leave without doing my shopping the first time I saw these, but I also might not be back. Sure, I'd learn to live with it if every grocery store were to get on board, but in that scenario not having them would become a major competitive advantage.
      - 5y ago
wyldfire 5y ago
> Still no one thought... glass? I'm sure it came up. Customer experience vs revenue for in-store billboards. Ad revenue won.
- the-pigeon 5y ago
  Yes. People see something dumb and decide the designers and business people involved are idiots. But often the business people and designers have very different goals and know that it's dumb. But they don't think it being dumb conflicts with their goals.
  - tootie 5y ago
    This is how the entire advertising industry works. Including digital and experiential marketing. I have personally set millions of customers' dollars on fire building doodads like these.
    - theshadowknows 5y ago
      I make my living helping big ass corporation, inc connect all the systems to use doodads like these :)
tantalor 5y ago
> will be replaced with an ad I'm not sure what that means. These already are ads. They are directly advertising the products literally inside the case.
- lupire 5y ago
  More they are advertising items no longer available in the case.
- 14 5y ago
  Yes but a short video of a person eating a delicious slice of that frozen Delicio Pizza surely will get your mouth watering. And if they can also tell you soap is on sale you may buy that before you leave. They know you need soap because the last time you bought some on your loyalty card was 2 months ago.
  - rightbyte 5y ago
    Sure but why not just have ordinary TVs in the roof proclaiming sales? Now that I think about it, I have not seen those TVs since the 90s. Maybe they drove the retail workers mad.
- function_seven 5y ago
  > They are directly advertising the products literally inside the case. Well, yeah, but glass would be just as effective and much cheaper. So they're doing something in addition to that. If the requirement was "display the goods we have for sale" then glass beats this thing in virtually every way. Cheaper, minimal maintenance, no firmware updates, and most of all: familiar. But these are going to be: * Tracking consumer interest ("eNgAgEmEnT") * Swapping between content display and billboard-style advertising * Changing prices dynamically depending on weather, foot traffic, historical "engagement", national ad campaigns ("all Coke products 50% during the World Cup!"), etc. * Pretending there's still Red Bulls in there when there aren't. * Pretending those Red Bulls are on the 3rd shelf, right, when the stocker actually put them on the 4th shelf this time. (He forgot to read the updated Planogram email) It's dystopian crap, I want nothing to do with it.
908B64B197 5y ago
> Edit: What bothers me the most about this, is that it will actually work. Any surface where eyes may fall on, will be replaced with an ad. Until someone finds out every screen has the same default password. And a few supermarkets are forced to shut them down because what was displayed was way, way worse than ads...
- hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
  Not looking forward to goatse when I get a hankering for microwave pizza.
  - owl57 5y ago
    Now, everyone suddenly knowing what the hell is goatse... I think this sounds comparable to how everyone (less) suddenly learned what the hell is Uber.
    - brewdad 5y ago
      Some knowledge should remain only with the gurus on the mountain tops.
- smegger001 5y ago
  yeah and now that everything is cloud connected and controlled by a corporate office far removed from the actual stores. I cant wait until thee freezer isle of some national chain starts displaying goatsx on every door some holiday weekend and its hours before it fixed.
  - NoGravitas 5y ago
    Inshallah.
  - carl_dr 5y ago
    I wonder if the screens can be turned off independently of the refrigeration or freezer, in case something like this does happen?
PragmaticPulp 5y ago
> and then convinced a grocery chain to buy this for their store I wouldn't be surprised if it was the other way around: The startup that produces these doors probably pitched them for free to this store, perhaps offering a cut of the ad revenue. If the startup is well-funded, they may have even paid the store up-front to let them install the doors. Given that these aren't widespread and the product is prototype quality, the startup likely needs a few pilot installs to show their investors and prove their product out. Assuming they're funded, getting some of these installed ASAP is their top priority. Trying to sell them would only slow that down.
meh99 5y ago
No one thought “glass” because the outcome was predetermined. Employees do not care about financial or literal waste. They only meme in mind when they go to their job for “make money”. I goto meetings with a vision and zero fucks about the implementation all the time. Why you expect that to be different otherwise in the same culture is beyond me.
raverbashing 5y ago
Based on other "ad in store" similar displays I suspect this will go unused in a couple of months, maybe years You have to sell the media to someone. This is not like the type of self-promotion posters that come with some products, this is a separate thing entirely. This might conflict with supermarket deals with the beverage manufacturers. It might make it harder to sell some brands. So either the ad space vendor is aligned with those interests and the ad buyer has an interest in buying this space (which might be hard to justify) I don't see it lasting too long. Oh yeah and guess what happens if the fridge needs maintenance and is not owned by the store... Something has got to give there.
frobozz 5y ago
> I would really, really love to have been in that sales pitch meeting. Me too. I could do with getting a bit of extra cash handed to me in a brown envelope.
wodenokoto 5y ago
Oh, come on. Everyone thought "glass". The whole project, from the grocery store point of view, was about testing an alternative to glass doors.
- Broken_Hippo 5y ago
  Very much this! Everyone thought glass. Not only was this about testing alternatives to glass, everything would have had their cost and possible revenue compared to glass - or possibly, to the cost of running their aging glass-doored fridge units, the decals they print for the front, and the employee hours spent on them.
  - rightbyte 5y ago
    There are electronic price tags for shelfs that don't need printing.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
swiley 5y ago
> none of them thought... glass? I would bet that lots of people did think glass but were convinced by the social inertia that glass must have some issue that makes it inferior.
notacoward 5y ago
> Any surface where eyes may fall on, will be replaced with an ad. With AR you don't even need surfaces.

tootie 5y ago

It's not a crazy idea and this likely a prototype and prone to bugs. Transparent displays have been a hot item for a while. The tech has been around for years but it's expensive and has had issues with brightness. They also need to tune the UX to be valuable and not too distracting. I think these will become ubiquitous in 10 years.

mypalmike 5y ago
This is not a transparent display as far as I can tell. It just renders images of what the inventory system thinks is behind it.
- dvtrn 5y ago
  There are pictures in the tweet of completely black screens, presumably malfunctioning or otherwise “off” screens so pretty clearly (heh) not transparent.
- tootie 5y ago
  You are correct. I've seen transparent versions of this which are pretty cool. These are just big dumb screens.

rdiddly 5y ago

It's an ad platform plain and simple; that's the whole value proposition. So I imagine every pitch, every meeting was about that. And every store that uses it will be doing it to get a cut of the ad revenue. It's true that it's lousy at being glass, but that's like saying smallpox blankets were a lousy way to make friends with Native Americans. The shittiness of it, in other words, was the goal all along, and any resemblance to glass or to helping you in any way was just a concession made to conceal its true nature and hopefully get you to accept it.

mrobins 5y ago
Except that moving inventory, and to a lesser extent generating repeat business, is more critical than ancillary ad revenue. If The screens don’t work or the ads aren’t effective, and I don’t open the door to get those high-margin also-bought drinks than they definitely do not achieve the store’s goal.
- jcims 5y ago
  The shoppers are already in the store, presumably to buy from their list. Now the store gets a cut of an ad and the profit from the sale it makes. The digital delivery is going to be amazing for A/B testing of ads because they are going to have near immediate feedback. It's pretty clever in a dystopian hellscape kind of way.
  - buu700 5y ago
    Counterpoint: all else being equal, I'd rather not have these because I think they'd be annoying, so if one of my local grocery stores were to install them I would then give more of my business to the other (largely interchangeable) ones going forward. You're right that I wouldn't rage quit and leave without doing my shopping the first time I saw these, but I also might not be back. Sure, I'd learn to live with it if every grocery store were to get on board, but in that scenario not having them would become a major competitive advantage.
    - 5y ago

wyldfire 5y ago

> Still no one thought... glass? I'm sure it came up. Customer experience vs revenue for in-store billboards. Ad revenue won.

the-pigeon 5y ago
Yes. People see something dumb and decide the designers and business people involved are idiots. But often the business people and designers have very different goals and know that it's dumb. But they don't think it being dumb conflicts with their goals.
- tootie 5y ago
  This is how the entire advertising industry works. Including digital and experiential marketing. I have personally set millions of customers' dollars on fire building doodads like these.
  - theshadowknows 5y ago
    I make my living helping big ass corporation, inc connect all the systems to use doodads like these :)

tantalor 5y ago

> will be replaced with an ad I'm not sure what that means. These already are ads. They are directly advertising the products literally inside the case.

lupire 5y ago
More they are advertising items no longer available in the case.
14 5y ago
Yes but a short video of a person eating a delicious slice of that frozen Delicio Pizza surely will get your mouth watering. And if they can also tell you soap is on sale you may buy that before you leave. They know you need soap because the last time you bought some on your loyalty card was 2 months ago.
- rightbyte 5y ago
  Sure but why not just have ordinary TVs in the roof proclaiming sales? Now that I think about it, I have not seen those TVs since the 90s. Maybe they drove the retail workers mad.
function_seven 5y ago
> They are directly advertising the products literally inside the case. Well, yeah, but glass would be just as effective and much cheaper. So they're doing something in addition to that. If the requirement was "display the goods we have for sale" then glass beats this thing in virtually every way. Cheaper, minimal maintenance, no firmware updates, and most of all: familiar. But these are going to be: * Tracking consumer interest ("eNgAgEmEnT") * Swapping between content display and billboard-style advertising * Changing prices dynamically depending on weather, foot traffic, historical "engagement", national ad campaigns ("all Coke products 50% during the World Cup!"), etc. * Pretending there's still Red Bulls in there when there aren't. * Pretending those Red Bulls are on the 3rd shelf, right, when the stocker actually put them on the 4th shelf this time. (He forgot to read the updated Planogram email) It's dystopian crap, I want nothing to do with it.

908B64B197 5y ago

> Edit: What bothers me the most about this, is that it will actually work. Any surface where eyes may fall on, will be replaced with an ad. Until someone finds out every screen has the same default password. And a few supermarkets are forced to shut them down because what was displayed was way, way worse than ads...

hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
Not looking forward to goatse when I get a hankering for microwave pizza.
- owl57 5y ago
  Now, everyone suddenly knowing what the hell is goatse... I think this sounds comparable to how everyone (less) suddenly learned what the hell is Uber.
  - brewdad 5y ago
    Some knowledge should remain only with the gurus on the mountain tops.
smegger001 5y ago
yeah and now that everything is cloud connected and controlled by a corporate office far removed from the actual stores. I cant wait until thee freezer isle of some national chain starts displaying goatsx on every door some holiday weekend and its hours before it fixed.
- NoGravitas 5y ago
  Inshallah.
- carl_dr 5y ago
  I wonder if the screens can be turned off independently of the refrigeration or freezer, in case something like this does happen?

PragmaticPulp 5y ago

> and then convinced a grocery chain to buy this for their store I wouldn't be surprised if it was the other way around: The startup that produces these doors probably pitched them for free to this store, perhaps offering a cut of the ad revenue. If the startup is well-funded, they may have even paid the store up-front to let them install the doors. Given that these aren't widespread and the product is prototype quality, the startup likely needs a few pilot installs to show their investors and prove their product out. Assuming they're funded, getting some of these installed ASAP is their top priority. Trying to sell them would only slow that down.

meh99 5y ago

No one thought “glass” because the outcome was predetermined. Employees do not care about financial or literal waste. They only meme in mind when they go to their job for “make money”. I goto meetings with a vision and zero fucks about the implementation all the time. Why you expect that to be different otherwise in the same culture is beyond me.

raverbashing 5y ago

Based on other "ad in store" similar displays I suspect this will go unused in a couple of months, maybe years You have to sell the media to someone. This is not like the type of self-promotion posters that come with some products, this is a separate thing entirely. This might conflict with supermarket deals with the beverage manufacturers. It might make it harder to sell some brands. So either the ad space vendor is aligned with those interests and the ad buyer has an interest in buying this space (which might be hard to justify) I don't see it lasting too long. Oh yeah and guess what happens if the fridge needs maintenance and is not owned by the store... Something has got to give there.

frobozz 5y ago

> I would really, really love to have been in that sales pitch meeting. Me too. I could do with getting a bit of extra cash handed to me in a brown envelope.

wodenokoto 5y ago

Oh, come on. Everyone thought "glass". The whole project, from the grocery store point of view, was about testing an alternative to glass doors.

Broken_Hippo 5y ago
Very much this! Everyone thought glass. Not only was this about testing alternatives to glass, everything would have had their cost and possible revenue compared to glass - or possibly, to the cost of running their aging glass-doored fridge units, the decals they print for the front, and the employee hours spent on them.
- rightbyte 5y ago
  There are electronic price tags for shelfs that don't need printing.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

swiley 5y ago

> none of them thought... glass? I would bet that lots of people did think glass but were convinced by the social inertia that glass must have some issue that makes it inferior.

notacoward 5y ago

> Any surface where eyes may fall on, will be replaced with an ad. With AR you don't even need surfaces.