As a customer, I'd much rather shop in a store that didn't pimp out every available space for a couple of bucks. Some chains must be scraping by with bare bones profit margins, and can only survive by selling advertising space anywhere to anybody. There is a chain in Chicago that feels like Las Vegas there is so much advertising assault. I don't shop there.
To me, this sounds like hell-on-earth, even though I usually block out the store muzak with my iPod:
Advertising Age - A Shopping-Cart-Ad Plan That Might Actually Work
MediaCart, a shopping cart with video-, voice- and radio-frequency identification, are hoping. MediaCart quietly rolled into a three-store pilot in the Northeast on Feb. 1, said company executives, who noted that the system has drawn interest -- if not commitments so far -- from the nation's top 10 retailers. The company plans two more regional tests by summer and a national rollout by year-end....
MediaCart is at least the third entry into the computer-aided-shopping-cart space, and neither of the other two have rolled out nationally yet. The oldest, Cuesol's Shopping Buddy, is in 20 New England Stop & Shop stores.But MediaCart executives feel they've cracked the code by putting their video screens atop the back of the cart, where it's almost impossible not to see during a shopping trip. The carts have cellphone-style navigation buttons on the handle and a self-scanning feature that can be used for nearly instant checkouts.
They also use voice-recognition technology to help shoppers find products, mobile-phone capability to connect users with customer-service personnel, and RFID to allow direct marketing and market research.
At MediaCart's Plano, Texas, test store, Procter & Gamble Co., General Mills, Kraft Foods and PepsiCo are among major marketers running ads and promotions on the video screens.
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MediaCart Chief Marketing Oficer Jon Kramer discourages marketers from using video longer than a couple of seconds- -- bout the longest he believes shoppers pay attention to most in-store messages. The exception is at checkout, where the carts can be programmed to play clips of Disney DVDs to induce impulse purchases by moms with kids in tow.Several hundred consumers have made research trips through Me
and what's a little privacy when you can get a 40¢ coupon for your Depends purchase?
About 80% of MediaCart features will work without using individual consumer data, Mr. Carpenter said. That could overcome a sticking point not only for privacy advocates, with whom he said MediaCart has been in contact, but also for such retail giants as Wal-Mart Stores, Target and Walgreens, which don't have loyalty programs.But the company concedes that at retailers with loyalty programs, shoppers will probably have to swipe their ID cards to benefit from promotional offers or special features such as downloading shopping lists from their computers or uploading recipes from the carts to their computers.
sheesh. Peapod is looking better and better.
Yeah right, Peapod is better for privacy ? Not only does it know your credit card number, it also knows your address, your house etc.