As restaurant ordering becomes increasingly frictionless, Domino’s Pizza is offering a promotion whereby consumers can order by making different facial expressions and moving their heads.
The company announced that it is working with Netflix on a “Stranger Things”-themed app to release a “mind ordering app,” which uses facial recognition and eye-tracking to power pizza orders via movements such as nodding, tilting their head, closing their eyes and more.
“We’re geeked to launch this first-of-its-kind mind ordering app, just in time for the premiere of ‘Stranger Things’ new season,” Kate Trumbull, Domino’s senior vice president of brand and product innovation, said in a statement. “Now hungry customers and ‘Stranger Things’ fans across the U.S. will get a taste of what it’s like to be Eleven, and they may find some hidden surprises along the way, such as the Noid or Demogorgon.”
While this particular promotion is something of a gimmick, there is widespread demand for more seamless ordering experiences, and if the technology proves effective and easy to use, it seems likely that Domino’s exploration of these technologies would extend beyond this campaign.
John Miller, CEO of PopID, a company that powers payments via facial recognition (or “facial verification,” as the company describes it), said in a March interview with PYMNTS that younger consumers are ready for these kinds of technologies.
Read more: Pay-With-Face Identity Verification Seeks New Users in Need of Rapid, Secure Payments
“These college students have grown up taking pictures of themselves and putting them all over the internet with TikTok and Snapchat,” he said. “The idea that you can take a picture of yourself to get your loyalty and pay is a natural extension of what they’ve been doing their whole life.”
Additionally, in September, automated boba bar startup Bobacino announced a partnership with the tech company to enable consumers to pay for their beverage with their faces.
“You can have that quick validation for repeat ordering and for payment in a secure and opt-in environment,” Darian Ahler, the boba bar’s CEO, told PYMNTS in an interview, “and you’re getting full confirmation, not only in the ordering process but then during pickup can also get that same validation, and it’s kind of a closed loop, seamless experience, especially for people that are more concerned with contactless solutions.”
In a similar vein, many restaurants are testing out automated voice ordering capabilities either for phone orders or for drive-thru customers. For instance, McDonald’s is working with IBM to automate order-taking at its drive-thrus.
Read more: McDonald’s Teams with IBM to Super-Size Drive-Thru Lane Tech
Meanwhile, Florida-based fast-casual chain BurgerFi is working on in-car automated ordering, and Marco’s Pizza is testing a voice-to-text ordering system at 50 locations.
See more: New Ordering Technology Extends the Drive-Thru Beyond the Lane
Restaurants Leverage Conversational AI to Automate Order-Taking
“More and more when we watch people interact with their devices, it’s voice,” Portillo’s Senior Vice President of Marketing and Off-Premise Dining Nick Scarpino told PYMNTS in an interview. “It’s sometimes the primary way that people are interacting with their devices.”
Read more: Portillo’s Reimagines Its Restaurants for the Mobile-Order Future
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