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Cooler screens

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Re: Cooler screens

#161

Post by syntheticnature »

stavros wrote: post #158
anon4242 wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

LOL from their homepage: The retail experience consumers want and deserve Cooler Screens was founded on the core idea that consumers deserve a better experience in brick-and-mortar retail. We bring in store consumers an irresistible experience with what they love about shopping online: ease, relevance, and transparency. 90%+ of consumers no longer prefer traditional glass cooler doors Fortunately we don't have them w…

Where did that 90% number come from? Did they ask ten people around the office?

I wonder if the survey question was something misleading like "Do you prefer to spend time looking through cooler doors or at an LCD TV with programming for you?"

Re: Cooler screens

#162

Post by jcrawfordor »

lucideer wrote: post #97
lucideer wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen these in bars for a few years now - the beer bottle fridges behind the bar will run animated ads for the beer brands in the fridge (mostly Heineken)

Edit: correction on my above comment (past editing deadline). The animated doors I've seen in bars are transparent LCDs, but the Walgreens screens in the businessinsider article above appear to be opaque & have a full (thick) monitor backing when opened. So they're... even less futuristic??? An example of the product I've seen in bars: http://damoccoolers.com/ - notably the contents of the cooler remain clearly visib…

Damoc is the principle and pretty much only competitor to Cooler Screens, in the cooler-with-a-screen space. I hesitate to endorse any implementation of this as a good idea, but if you accept the premise as Cooler Screens themselves articulate it, it's pretty obvious that Damoc has come up with a far better product.

I suspect that's part of the air of desperation in the Cooler Screens/Walgreens relationship. Cooler Screens doesn't actually have leadership on the technology so they need to hang on to their major customers to appear to be the mature, ready for business option.

Re: Cooler screens

#163

Post by burnte »

egypturnash wrote: post #87

I hate these things, I have seen them in some of the Walgreens around town and I just keep on thinking about the energy wasted both by lighting up the whole screen brightly enough to see in the store, and by customers opening the doors up so they can see what's actually there and letting more cool air out. I've never seen them displaying ads, just big graphics saying "WATER" or "ICE CREAM" or "MILK" or whatever when…

Every time I'm in a new store (and occasionally I'll repeat it) I'll tell managers that "as a customer, I'm complaining about those doors, and I'm not going to waste time opening all the doors to find what I want, I'll just go to another store." Now I realize they themselves don't care, but by saying "as a customer" I'm trying to help them truthfully say "customers are complaining and we're losing sales." Can't wait for them to be gone.

Re: Cooler screens

#164

Post by abawany »

marcosdumay wrote: post #149
kibwen wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ad industry is not Midas, but Mierdas: everything it touches turns to shit.

Anybody that uses "Midas touch" in a positive way completely failed to grasp the story.

In a culture where 'greed is good' turning (spoiler alert) your own daughter into inert gold is considered 'smart monetization.'

Re: Cooler screens

#165

Post by pfgallagher »

jw_cook wrote: post #144
pfgallagher wrote: post #100

I used to work at Cooler Screens, if anyone has any questions :D

I'd love to hear your thoughts on the article's theory that the main (technical) problem is thermals: > "Cooler Screens does refer to them as vivid and engaging, and they must have thought that they needed to compete with store lighting to catch attention... the wattage of the backlighting (and attendant heat dissipated) must be considerable. > "...I suspect they have a thermal problem. The whole system probably work…

I wasn't involved with the hardware side of things. The SoCs are from Nvidia, iirc. The widely-publicized issues with Walgreens are 'electrical,' but I'm unsure of what that actually boils down to in practice.

Re: Cooler screens

#166

Post by CalRobert »

egypturnash wrote: post #87

I hate these things, I have seen them in some of the Walgreens around town and I just keep on thinking about the energy wasted both by lighting up the whole screen brightly enough to see in the store, and by customers opening the doors up so they can see what's actually there and letting more cool air out. I've never seen them displaying ads, just big graphics saying "WATER" or "ICE CREAM" or "MILK" or whatever when…

It was unsettling to see a notice in a CVS that by looking at their sodas on said screen I was consenting to having my facial details processed.

Re: Cooler screens

#167

Post by sspiff »

dna_polymerase wrote: post #29
sspiff wrote: post #16

A fun aside: Cooler Screens, the company making these, used to be the CEO of Walgreens, and Walgreens is their only "whale" customer. Walgreens began to sour on the idea of the idea of these screens, and the current CEO basically cancelled the whole deal when he came in, calling them ugly, costly and ineffective. Cooler Screens has been forced to take back many of the screens, which are custom made to the size of the…

This is all covered in the post.

Sorry, I didn't notice. I read the beginning but it was a bit long winded for my taste (insert comment about modern attention spans here). I skimmed through it but obviously missed the multiple paragraphs about the Walgreens saga (insert comment about modern reading comprehension skills here).

Re: Cooler screens

#169

Post by jonhohle »

egypturnash wrote: post #87

I hate these things, I have seen them in some of the Walgreens around town and I just keep on thinking about the energy wasted both by lighting up the whole screen brightly enough to see in the store, and by customers opening the doors up so they can see what's actually there and letting more cool air out. I've never seen them displaying ads, just big graphics saying "WATER" or "ICE CREAM" or "MILK" or whatever when…

At first I thought this is like a clear oled panel on the door, but it’s just a huge, opaque when off, LCD screen? And they use cameras to show you what clear glass would have shown you otherwise?

Re: Cooler screens

#170

Post by shaftway »

ballenf wrote: post #145
RetroTechie wrote: post #36

The reliability issues are surprising: First on some testbench, developing software, power supply, (physical) install procedures, etc. With that done, one would expect to outfit a few stores to see how they work IRL. But no: "The initial round of installations in 2018 reached 10,300 screens in 700 stores." As part of a $200 million plan to cover 2,500 stores. From testbench to fitting 10k screens across 700 stores, w…

What's really surprising is that there are no humans at Walgreens who can call out obviously bullshit customer surveys knowing that they're wrong. The company behaves like a zombie with no one really in control. The emperor really has no clothes, but customer surveys say otherwise.

There are no incentives for anyone to do so.

One VP introduces this idea, does "case studies" designed to make it look good, rolls it out, distorts the statistics to show that it's a win, collects a bonus, and then moves on.

A second VP recognizes that it's bogus, removes the program, distorts the statistics to show that it's a win, collects a bonus, and then moves on.

If a third VP were to pop up and point out that it's stupid, they would be vilified for standing in the way of progress and eventually ousted, or just leave out of disgust because of the company's stupid ideas.

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