Monday Memo
A Byte of Knowledge
Work stretches to fill whatever time you give it.
That's Parkinson's Law.
With AI in the loop, though, the gap between how long a job takes and how long you scheduled has gotten huge.
And the time doesn't come back on its own.
Give a project its usual month and you'll find ways to fill it...extra revisions, a longer review, a feature nobody requested.
So the speed gets spent inside the old timeline instead of banked.
You have to take it on purpose.
Before the next project starts, ask how much faster it could get done with AI in the mix? Probably a lot.
Act on that answer... shorten the project timeline, tell the team, reset the client's expectations.
Do that every time and you buy back weeks a quarter, room for another launch, another test, another swing.
🚀 WATCH: How These AI Copy Bots Are Producing World-Class Sales Copy 50X Faster Than Even The "BEST" Copywriters On The Market…
(Plus… They Don't Get Sick, Miss Deadlines, Or Ask For Raises Either!)
Watch the full AI Copywriting Tell-All Video Here
Something to Ponder
We Asked – AI Answered
Our Question:
“Many sports stadiums now have checkout-free kiosks where you scan your card, grab what you want, and walk out. The technology automatically charges you without a traditional checkout.
I imagine removing that extra step encourages people to spend more.
Do a deep dive into the data on these checkout-free experiences. How much have they increased customer spending, average transaction size, and overall revenue compared to traditional checkouts?"
AI's Answer: The Frictionless Fan: What Checkout-Free Really Does to Stadium Sales 🏟️
Think of a concession stand as a pipe. Revenue equals the number of fans you squeeze through it times what each one spends. Checkout-free tech widens the pipe... and the data says most of the new money comes from there.
⏱️ The Line Tax
Back in 2016, Oracle surveyed 3,500+ fans across eight countries:
→ Over 40% had walked out of a concession line in the past year without buying, because the wait ran too long
→ U.S. fans said they'd spend about $20 more per party, per game, if venues cut waits in half
Every fan who bails on that line takes a sale you already earned back to his seat.
🔍 The Twist Inside the Basket
The basket grows far less than the till. Run the Raiders' own 2022 numbers, as VP Adam Feldman presented them:
- 💰 Revenue: +78%
- 🧾 Average check: +15%
- 🔁 Implied transactions: about +55%
Roughly three-quarters of that lift came from more trips, with bigger checks supplying the rest.
Aramark's AI-vision self-checkout markets (Mashgin kiosks, a close cousin) push it further. Compared with traditional bars, transactions per register ran 134% higher while sales per register ran 115% higher... so the average ticket came in about 8% smaller.
A 2024 working paper on Just Walk Out stores at a large U.S. university found the same pattern: more traffic at peak times and a shift toward grab-and-eat items like protein bars and candy.
🧠 Why Your Wallet Loosens
1. The pain of paying. In a 2001 MIT experiment, Drazen Prelec and Duncan Simester had MBA students bid on Boston sports tickets. Students told to pay by credit card bid up to roughly double what cash bidders offered.
2. The fade. A 2024 Journal of Retailing meta-analysis (71 papers, 392 effect sizes) found the cashless effect real but modest... and weakening over time. A venue that already runs card-only has already banked most of that effect, so checkout-free mostly sells speed.
🎯 The Takeaway
Judge the investment by throughput and payroll, and treat any basket bump as gravy.
☑️ Track halftime transactions per minute and labor hours, before and after launch. Round Rock reported 60%+ labor-cost savings, and the Seahawks' Lumen Field a 32% gain in labor efficiency.
☑️ Budget for a modest change in check size... the data above runs from 8% lower to 15% higher.
Thanks for reading the Monday Memo.
Until next time!
The AI Marketers
P.S. Help shape the future of this newsletter – take a short 2-minute survey so we can deliver even better AI marketing insights, prompts, and tools.
[Take Survey Here]
