YOU DON’T SAY: Ads Are Popping Up on the Fridge and It Isn’t Going Over Well.
Walking into his kitchen, Tim Yoder recoiled at a message on his refrigerator door: “Shop Samsung water filters.”
Yoder, a supply-chain manager in Chicago, owns a Samsung Electronics Family Hub fridge. He paid $1,400 for an appliance that came with a 32-inch screen on the door that allows him to control other Samsung gadgets, pull up recipes or stream music.
But since last fall, it’s been intermittently serving up ads, part of a pilot program being tested on some of Samsung’s smart fridges sold in the U.S. The response? Not warm.
“I guess this is another place for somebody to shove an ad in your face,” said the 47-year-old Yoder, recalling the first time he noticed one.
Americans have learned to live with ads on smartphones and other devices as a necessary trade-off of connectivity. They’ve also gotten used to growing intrusions in the physical world, where everything from bathroom stalls to taxicab seats have become fair game for marketers. But the kitchen remained largely off-limits.
If you don’t want ads on a thing, don’t buy a thing with a screen and connectivity.
Exit question: Who needs a fridge that streams music? I can’t imagine the audio quality is any good. It’s also just one more damn thing on an expensive appliance that might break.
