Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Notice how most of the rest of the commercials on are for things like snack food, beer and cars where the image and consumer perception of the product are more important than the product itself." Interestingly enough, the reason those companies buy all those ads is that enough Americans go to the store to buy more beer/chips during halftime that the ads actually pay for themselves before the end of the game. IIRC th…
"IIRC the checkout scanners enable the execs at these companies to watch their sales in real time.", can you provide any further information or links on this? Shocking if true, and my quick google searching was fruitless.
A lot of companies use local servers in store locations that dial home and upload data nightly. In the brick retail environment, that's pretty close to real-time.