Skip to main content

Fast Food ATMs

Arby's has created self-serve kiosks inside their restaurants. You walk up, use a touch screen to order from an attractive, picture-laden menu, swipe your credit card, and pick up your food at the counter. The kiosks themselves are an ingenious addition, but Arby's uses an even better idea to entice you to use the things.

The brilliance is in the thinking behind it all (hopefully). For each order you place using one of the machines, you receive a free size upgrade to your meal or a free dessert. You immediately think they are being cheap, cutting costs of labor by automating the order process. Then you see the offer, and suddenly, your thoughts of corporate frugality transform into a feeling of delight from the graciousness of their newly offered efficiency.

They want you to move in and out of the restaurant faster. They are sending the right message. After months of use, the offer will probably go away. People will have become accustomed to the kiosks and then Arby's will be using them as a cost cutting measure. But by then you will have forgotten about how cheap corporations are and remember only how you were trained to order your roast beast sandwich - from a robot.


Popular posts from this blog

Recommended Reading

I support literacy (no revelation there, not that many are against it) and would like to share some good books with points of view about the world at large. The first in the series is... Dry by Augusten Burrows. A truly witty, and thus endearingly honest, memoir of an advertising guru's journey into and through sobriety, friendship, and mortality. It seems real enough to pass for autobiographical .
Read more

List Of Convenient Excuses To Avoid Change

1. "That will never work." 2. "That said, the labor laws make it difficult for us to do a lot of the suggestions you put out. And we do live in a lawsuit oriented society." 3. "Can you show me some research that demonstrates that this will work?" 4. "Well, if you had some real-world experience, then you would understand." 5. "I don't think our customers will go for that, and without them we'd never be able to afford to try this." 6. "It's fantastic, but the salesforce won't like it." 7. "The salesforce is willing to give it a try, but [insert major retailer/corporation/partner here] won't stock it." 8. "There are government regulations and this won't be permitted." 9. "Well, this might work for other people, but I think we'll stick with what we've got." 10. "Our team doesn't have the technical chops to do this." 11. "Maybe in the next b...
Read more

The... OUCH... Hard... YIKES... Way...

I learned an important lesson today. Starting in the middle of a concept and talking about it to the end makes you sound really smart, if not so smart that the concept can zoom right over your audience's head. That can be a good thing... or a bad thing. When starting from an assumed position, whether it be philosophy or knowledge, you are going to come across as thoughtful or knowledgeable to your audience. This mostly happens because they are starting from a position of less experience. If you want to bowl someone over, start in the middle. Being overwhelmed by information and trying to fit pieces of it together to make sense of the last half of a story is tiring and confusing. Of course, this has its place. It is like walking into a primitive village with a lighter.... By the time you bite off the head of a snake and chug down the local beverage, everyone will be ready to listen when you shout, "Follow me!". Both religion and Ron Popeil have recruited millions t...
Read more