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
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.
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.
> All american fridges contain at least 20% expired condiments, by volume.
Refrigerators are generally sized between 300 and 500 liters. Are you suggesting that most (I won't even say all) refrigerators have 60 liters of expired condiments?
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?
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.
> 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.
> rather than spend a penny of the $87 million in gross profit they were making.
PJ's gross profits are much higher than this, in the hundreds of millions, usually over $500M. $87 million is approximately their net income for 2024 ($83.49M, down to $30.5M in 2025).
> 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.
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
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?
> 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.
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.
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.
23 comments
[ 506 ms ] story [ 456 ms ] threadIt 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.
[1] https://www.paulgraham.com/submarine.html
Anyways, I wonder if instacart can predict political affiliation. I bet their data scientists have at least tried.
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.
PJ's gross profits are much higher than this, in the hundreds of millions, usually over $500M. $87 million is approximately their net income for 2024 ($83.49M, down to $30.5M in 2025).
https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/PZZA/papa-johns/gr...
https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/PZZA/papa-johns/ne...
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.
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?
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.
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
1 - https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/08/13/big-med
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.