Well, there are a couple of angles on these machines:
1. An overload of Big Macs eventually becomes bad for you.
2. There's no real barrier to people helping the homeless
by donating their Twitter handle to this minor
activity.
3. People without private personal access to the internet
still have public resources they can manipulate, if
some trivial social media account eventually nets them
a burger.
4. There's no real barrier to creating unlimited Twitter
accounts. I could whip up 100 disposable handles at a
moment's notice if so inclined. Side note: how does
twitter feel about this?
5. Because there are such low barriers to burger
acquisition, and the available inventory of burgers is
finite, do not be surprised when the not-so-infinite
supply of burgers dries up, if machines get mobbed.
So, while the machines are not a bottomless pit of
burgers (lest cows go extinct) the non-homeless do
clearly possess an advantage in emptying out the
machines. Can't win 'em all...
Employee-less retail locations do not currently make economic sense. For the near to moderate future, every business will keep at least 1-2 employees per location, mostly to handle extreme edge cases like flooding, cars being driven into the building, or hostage situations. And that's in addition to the jobs that are still to complex or performed too rarely to automate.
Also, some humans are always going to want to talk to a human - maybe to express praise or dissatisfaction with something trivial about their visit, and receive a Hawthorne effect-like reward[1] - and so the human becomes a "human interface device" part of the machine.
Remember how self-check registers were supposed to replace grocery store checkers? It's been over a decade, and stores still pay people to wave food over a red light.
I prefer self checkout except for the difficulty of using coupons, and the fact that the systems are unbelievably slow in most stores. Those are relatively trivial things to sort out and then self checkout would be all I need. I'm sure there are people who would never prefer them, but I've seen huge lines for self checkout when there are almost no lines in regular checkout more than once.
Going from the minimum 5+ people at a time staffing a McDonalds to 1 is going to be a big difference.
Eatsa is sort of illustrative on the customer service side; they have a single person out front to open & close the restaurant, monitor the restaurant and clean up as necessary.
I think that getting rid of the last person will be tricky with anywhere that has a dining area, but I could imagine a drive-through McDonalds with no employees, or a McDonald's vending machine.
every business will keep at least 1-2 employees per location,
mostly to handle extreme edge cases like flooding, cars being
driven into the building, or hostage situations.
I wonder how many McDonalds has experienced a flood, a car being driven into the building, or a hostage situation, in the last 10 years. I dare say it's an insignificant proportion - not enough to warrant 1-2 employees per place.
I dare that you are right - every business will still need a few employees for each location - but rather than hostage situations or floods, the cases will be rather more humdrum. Whether it's computers crashing, ovens needing oiling, cleaning, supplies that need refilling - there will be plenty of routine tasks that need a human to carry out.
While I agree with your statement as-is (Employee-less retail locations do not currently make economic sense"), I do believe we'll see a dramatic reduction in employment in commodity retail locations (anything that sells upscale or non-essentials will retain humans).
Many large companies are trying very hard, and tech is basically here, see for example:
Self-check is getting a lot better too (I don't understand why it's getting delayed).
I also believe that employee arbitrage is an opportunity (serving high-cost areas from low-cost areas, and improving employee usage and efficiency), and I'm going to personally invest in building tech to enable that.
It's an interesting idea. I have a lot of questions around Loss Prevention - how do they address shoplifting, on-premises consumption, destruction of merchandise, and other retail issues Amazon hasn't faced before.
> And even the newest technology often requires some degree of human interaction. For instance, burgers may pop out of the Boston McDonald’s machine unassisted next week, but they’ll be loaded into it by actual people. For now, at least.
So, yeah, nothing actually interesting here, just a marketing stunt.
> Toasting four bread surfaces for each alone would be energy prohibitive
Sure, but this could have just been an experiment in automation. They wouldn't necessarily release a device like this to the market, but it could be a prototype they learn from.
To view the article you need to "sign up" to their site for some bullshit reason. To get your "free" burger you likewise have to shill for the company.
This saying is probably equivalent to the efficient market hypothesis ;) I prescribe to the point of view that while on average there are no free lunches you can still get a free lunch here and there.
What's wrong with McDonald's asking you do something in exchange for a hamburger? Were you expecting they wouldn't ask for something in return for value they generated for you? I'd genuinely like to better understand this mindset.
I can't even count the number of times I have received free things on the street. Sometimes they just jam it into my hands, I don't even want it, and have to give it back. This is standard operating procedure with companies promoting samples of new products, or trying to broaden the appeal of an existing one.
Not once have they forced me to do anything to recieve it. There are exceptions like alcohol give-aways where they card everyone, but they don't write down names or collect data from that, simply verify for legal reasons. It is always a transaction where they just give you the thing without hesitation.
"...value they generated for you?"
What "value" are they generating? They're asking me to try their product in the hopes that I might like it and buy more of it in the future. They're asking for my time, for my attention, to consider their product.
I see. Since several other companies have given you free, seemingly no-strings-attached samples it's created an expectation that other companies should do the same. While I don't share this experience or mindset, I can see how it may have been shaped for you.
The value generated here seems quite clear to me though. They're giving food. Food is valuable. The degree of value differs from person to person, but McDonald's is taking a reasonable bet that new versions of one of the world's most popular fast foods is valuable to enough people for their marketing push to yield a positive ROI.
There are also several other types of value generated. They've created a novel experience (hamburgers from an automated vending machine). The excitement gained from observing and trying a novel experience is also valuable.
That's where I disagree. They're marketing. They're giving away samples. McDonald's is not in the business of free food, they're in the business of getting people to pay for food.
If they're trying to test the waters for vending-machine produced food, put a nominal price tag on it. A $2 price-tag signals that they're exploring this as a retail option and giving a friendly discount to early adopters. A "free but let us tweet for you" price-tag signals this was designed by the marketing department as some stunt.
If you like paying for marketing with your own reputation, knock yourself out.
They're doing both. They are marketing by giving food. Marketing and generating value for the person being marketed to aren't mutually exclusive.
No company, aside from aid organizations, are in the business of giving away free anything.
Your other points are critiques on whether you think their marketing execution will be successful and whether or not the net exchange of value is positive for you.
I'm talking about whether McDonald's is generating value for people by giving them food. They are.
It sounds like for you personally, the cost to obtain that value is too high and your net value is negative. That's okay. That equation balances differently for others, and that's what McDonald's is betting on. It doesn't mean they aren't generating value for some people though.
Your twisty logic here is how marketing stunts like this happen in the first place, and why we're likely to see more of it in the future.
"Take a selfie with our cam for a free burger!" (* May be used in marketing materials. All shots copyright McDonald's.)
"Give a blood sample for a free burger!" (* Samples may be sold for medical research purposes. Interesting genes found may be patented. Blood sample becomes exclusive property of McDonald's.)
Where do you draw the line? What's too invasive?
This is marketing, it shouldn't demand things from people other than their attention.
> Where do you draw the line? What's too invasive?
The line is draw by consumers, marketers, consumer protection agencies and the legal system. If marketers are being deceptive, that's a legal and moral issue. Marketers have stepped over the legal line and they've been sued for deceptive marketing practices. Setting aand enforcing a moral line is a whole other discussion :)
In the case of the article, I haven't seen any indication anything deceptive is taking place. The price to receive a big mac seems clear: allow McDonald's to send a tweet. People can either choose to pay that price or not. If that price isn't clear (eg. McDonald's asks for Twitter permission, but doesn't tell you they'll send out a tweet) and McDonald's is being deceptive, then they should be punished by the legal system.
Apple could have done the same thing with an automated vending machine which dispenses new Macbooks to evaluate consumer reactions to the touchbar. You get a new Macbook if you allow Apple to send a tweet out from your account. I'm willing to pay that price. You might not be. You are free to make that choice.
If you think Apple's actions are stepping over the line, then you are free to campaign against them to change laws or get them to change their practices so they reflect your definition of the line.
I personally don't agree with your definition of the line, so I don't feel motivated to change the laws to prohibit this behavior.
Talked about Big Macs yesterday with co-workers (yes, of course we work in an open-space office...). Wanted to share this video of McDonalds Exec Chef Dan Coudreaut making a Big Mac: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcu4Bj3xEyI
"Growth Marketing" at its finest. The quick summary is that if you give the machine access to your Twitter account so that it can tweet out an advertisement "from you" it will dispense you a pre-made burger. No doubt its one per twitter handle so be sure and have a bunch of pre-made handles ready for it.
As with most things, such systems are equal parts clever and stupid. The gamers in the crowd will get free burgers with day old twitter accounts that have specious handles like @NeverBelieveMyTweets or @ShillingForTheMan etc. This will cause McDonald's to hastily try to push updates to the software to check the ages of accounts, handles with bad words in them, etc. And of course it is "working around" a number of FTC regulations on implicit advertising in exchange for free merchandise (those tweets better include a disclaimer!) and the cash starved company (Twitter) itself is not seeing "advertising" or "promoting" revenue (it would be really interesting if the BigMac machine tries to use your account to promote its own tweet from your account).
So once again we have a "brilliant" idea where if it is only used in exactly the way they want it to be used, would be brilliant, but is so easily exploitable that such use will likely be overwhelmed by mischief resulting in a much more costly campaign.
>> The gamers in the crowd will get free burgers with day old twitter accounts
(aged) Twitter accounts appear to be pretty inexpensive:
http://www.latimes.com/business/technology/la-fi-tn-twitter-hacker-20160609-snap-story.html
"The hacker... is asking 10 bitcoin, or just under $6,000,
for what he or she claims are the log-in credentials
for 379 million Twitter accounts."
Ever since I discovered the last ingredient to reverse engineer the Big Mac, (the magic sauce [0]), I haven't returned to a McDonald's...
Now, from time to time, I just do "Big Mac parties" with friends and family, and with €12 ($13) I can get the ingredients for 5 homemade "McMenus"... You can't beat that even with all the automation of the world. xD
Garbage like this is why I have never and probably will never do anything with my advertising qualification. There's nothing creative about this, the outcomes it produces are of no benefit (people will just ignore shill tweets), and it probably only exists to create a bit of short term "buzz" around the McDonalds brand.
The cynicism and disdain for consumers that it took to make something like this is almost sickening.
Probably because some ad agency told them it was a good idea. And also because the tweets aren't really the point of this campaign - they just want to make headlines and keep the brand name in the back of people's minds.
48 comments
[ 2.0 ms ] story [ 137 ms ] threadAlso, really sucks that the homeless will be left out of this giveaway.
lol
Also, some humans are always going to want to talk to a human - maybe to express praise or dissatisfaction with something trivial about their visit, and receive a Hawthorne effect-like reward[1] - and so the human becomes a "human interface device" part of the machine.
Remember how self-check registers were supposed to replace grocery store checkers? It's been over a decade, and stores still pay people to wave food over a red light.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawthorne_effect
Eatsa is sort of illustrative on the customer service side; they have a single person out front to open & close the restaurant, monitor the restaurant and clean up as necessary.
I think that getting rid of the last person will be tricky with anywhere that has a dining area, but I could imagine a drive-through McDonalds with no employees, or a McDonald's vending machine.
I dare that you are right - every business will still need a few employees for each location - but rather than hostage situations or floods, the cases will be rather more humdrum. Whether it's computers crashing, ovens needing oiling, cleaning, supplies that need refilling - there will be plenty of routine tasks that need a human to carry out.
Many large companies are trying very hard, and tech is basically here, see for example:
https://www.amazon.com/b?node=16008589011
Self-check is getting a lot better too (I don't understand why it's getting delayed).
I also believe that employee arbitrage is an opportunity (serving high-cost areas from low-cost areas, and improving employee usage and efficiency), and I'm going to personally invest in building tech to enable that.
So there isn't too much of interest here. This is really a marketing campaign and not progress on automation.
> And even the newest technology often requires some degree of human interaction. For instance, burgers may pop out of the Boston McDonald’s machine unassisted next week, but they’ll be loaded into it by actual people. For now, at least.
So, yeah, nothing actually interesting here, just a marketing stunt.
Toasting four bread surfaces for each alone would be energy prohibitive.
Sure, but this could have just been an experiment in automation. They wouldn't necessarily release a device like this to the market, but it could be a prototype they learn from.
What a world we've created.
Not once have they forced me to do anything to recieve it. There are exceptions like alcohol give-aways where they card everyone, but they don't write down names or collect data from that, simply verify for legal reasons. It is always a transaction where they just give you the thing without hesitation.
"...value they generated for you?"
What "value" are they generating? They're asking me to try their product in the hopes that I might like it and buy more of it in the future. They're asking for my time, for my attention, to consider their product.
The value generated here seems quite clear to me though. They're giving food. Food is valuable. The degree of value differs from person to person, but McDonald's is taking a reasonable bet that new versions of one of the world's most popular fast foods is valuable to enough people for their marketing push to yield a positive ROI.
There are also several other types of value generated. They've created a novel experience (hamburgers from an automated vending machine). The excitement gained from observing and trying a novel experience is also valuable.
That's where I disagree. They're marketing. They're giving away samples. McDonald's is not in the business of free food, they're in the business of getting people to pay for food.
If they're trying to test the waters for vending-machine produced food, put a nominal price tag on it. A $2 price-tag signals that they're exploring this as a retail option and giving a friendly discount to early adopters. A "free but let us tweet for you" price-tag signals this was designed by the marketing department as some stunt.
If you like paying for marketing with your own reputation, knock yourself out.
No company, aside from aid organizations, are in the business of giving away free anything.
Your other points are critiques on whether you think their marketing execution will be successful and whether or not the net exchange of value is positive for you.
I'm talking about whether McDonald's is generating value for people by giving them food. They are.
It sounds like for you personally, the cost to obtain that value is too high and your net value is negative. That's okay. That equation balances differently for others, and that's what McDonald's is betting on. It doesn't mean they aren't generating value for some people though.
"Take a selfie with our cam for a free burger!" (* May be used in marketing materials. All shots copyright McDonald's.)
"Give a blood sample for a free burger!" (* Samples may be sold for medical research purposes. Interesting genes found may be patented. Blood sample becomes exclusive property of McDonald's.)
Where do you draw the line? What's too invasive?
This is marketing, it shouldn't demand things from people other than their attention.
Which part of my logic is twisty?
> Where do you draw the line? What's too invasive?
The line is draw by consumers, marketers, consumer protection agencies and the legal system. If marketers are being deceptive, that's a legal and moral issue. Marketers have stepped over the legal line and they've been sued for deceptive marketing practices. Setting aand enforcing a moral line is a whole other discussion :)
In the case of the article, I haven't seen any indication anything deceptive is taking place. The price to receive a big mac seems clear: allow McDonald's to send a tweet. People can either choose to pay that price or not. If that price isn't clear (eg. McDonald's asks for Twitter permission, but doesn't tell you they'll send out a tweet) and McDonald's is being deceptive, then they should be punished by the legal system.
Apple could have done the same thing with an automated vending machine which dispenses new Macbooks to evaluate consumer reactions to the touchbar. You get a new Macbook if you allow Apple to send a tweet out from your account. I'm willing to pay that price. You might not be. You are free to make that choice. If you think Apple's actions are stepping over the line, then you are free to campaign against them to change laws or get them to change their practices so they reflect your definition of the line.
I personally don't agree with your definition of the line, so I don't feel motivated to change the laws to prohibit this behavior.
You're entitled to your opinions though, plus you're free to irritate your friends on Twitter with your free burger spam.
As with most things, such systems are equal parts clever and stupid. The gamers in the crowd will get free burgers with day old twitter accounts that have specious handles like @NeverBelieveMyTweets or @ShillingForTheMan etc. This will cause McDonald's to hastily try to push updates to the software to check the ages of accounts, handles with bad words in them, etc. And of course it is "working around" a number of FTC regulations on implicit advertising in exchange for free merchandise (those tweets better include a disclaimer!) and the cash starved company (Twitter) itself is not seeing "advertising" or "promoting" revenue (it would be really interesting if the BigMac machine tries to use your account to promote its own tweet from your account).
So once again we have a "brilliant" idea where if it is only used in exactly the way they want it to be used, would be brilliant, but is so easily exploitable that such use will likely be overwhelmed by mischief resulting in a much more costly campaign.
Now, from time to time, I just do "Big Mac parties" with friends and family, and with €12 ($13) I can get the ingredients for 5 homemade "McMenus"... You can't beat that even with all the automation of the world. xD
[0] http://www.tesco.com/groceries/product/details/?id=292462714
The cynicism and disdain for consumers that it took to make something like this is almost sickening.