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Digital menu boards in focus at InfoComm '13

Facial-recognition capabilities of some digital signage solutions allow restaurants to gather information on the demographics of the people looking at their menu boards, but also to see where on the board people are looking.

June 19, 2013 by Christopher Hall — writer, self

Digital signage experts provided rapid-fire instructional sessions throughout this year's InfoComm A/V trade show in Orlando, Fla., last week. Their topics ranged from "Delivering Great User Experiences" to "Digital Signage Disasters."

Speakers crammed hours' worth of expertise into 30-minute bites, providing instruction to audiovisual professionals and potential technology end-users alike.

Richard Ventura, the director of sales for vertical solutions for digital signage provider NEC Display Solutions of America, delved into one of the more significant potential growth areas for digital signage, the restaurant and food service industry, with his talk, "The Digital Restaurant."

Starting off with a key piece of advice for resellers and integrators — "You're trying to deliver tools to your customers...You want to give them tools to solve their challenges." — Ventura provided a quick-hitting look at how and why digital signage is infiltrating the restaurant space.

If one were to look at the top 20 restaurants in the quick-service restaurant space, he said, they would see more than 118,000 stores that still only make up about 35 percent of the industry. Some of those larger chains already have started rolling out digital signage, but even just looking outside of the top 20 offers a huge opportunity for digital signage installers, he said.

Ventura took a quick look at restaurant design and how it's changed over the years, pointing out how big a change even the most modern restaurants can achieve with digital signage and digital menu boards.

"Once they go digital it's amazing how much it changes," he said.

The biggest trend in the restaurant space right now is mobile, he said, referencing Dunkin' Donuts app that allows customers to order before they get to the store. Digital signage can be a way to get customers to opt-in with their mobile devices and to interact with the brand.

Along with mobile, social media and cross-channel marketing are all trends affecting how restaurants have to change the way they communicate to customers to communicate to them effectively, he said. They're also trends that fit right in with the dynamic capabilities of digital signage.

Some of the driving factors for digital signage adoption in restaurants include its ability for dayparting menus; its responsiveness and flexibility for marketing campaigns; and the ability to use it for new product launches and test marketing, he said.

And then there's the FDA-mandated menu labeling laws that restaurants have been bracing for for years.

"It is finally going into place," he said. "This is a huge opportunity for AV integrators. It's not going to be just a simple menu board anymore."

Some of the key trends today for digital signage in restaurants offer exciting capabilities to restaurant owners, he said. Digital signage can be integrated with databases so that price changes at the point of sale are automatically reflected in the menu board. Digital signage also helps restaurants maintain brand consistency across all locations, as well as the option for cellphone and kiosk interactivity. And the facial-recognition capabilities of some digital signage solutions allow restaurants to gather information not only on the demographics of the people looking at their menu boards, but also to see where on the board people are looking — so they can adjust where they place on the board the items they most want to sell.

Also, in addition to digital menu boards, pre-sale boards in a restaurant can influence consumer behavior before the order is placed and can have a significant impact on buying decisions, he said.

"This is a huge upsell opportunity that restaurants are looking at," Ventura said.

Some restaurants also want to use in-store digital signage screens as infotainment, to keep customers in the store longer and buying more food — but also to give them control, unlike showing regular TV, over everything on the screen, so customers don't see competitors' ads on their screens.

"If you do it right, you can actually increase your sales," he said.

Also, he said, the potential is there for in-store third-party digital advertising, with huge ad network potential across restaurant chains.

Offering advice on how to take a restaurant digital, Ventura pointed out that the products used must be designed for the environment, whether it's sealed displays to protect against grease and particulates in the air or outdoor sunlight-readable screens in the drive-thru.

Also key are the ability to control screens over IP or RS 232, remote monitoring and the ability to lock down screens from outside inputs. (To the latter point, Ventura recounted going into a QSR chain location and finding that the employees were playing Xbox games on the menu board screens.)

But it's not just QSRs that can benefit from digital signage or digital menu boards, he said. Ventura also gave his audience a look at how digital signage screens have been adapted to fit into fast-casual restaurants, snack shops and coffeehouses, and in sports bars.

"Sports bars are video wall heaven," he said, referring to the arrays of multiple screens configured to show a single video image.

During a short question and answer session, Ventura offered advice to A/V integrators that it might be wise to focus on restaurants or restaurant chains with fewer than 200 locations. Larger chains are more likely to piecemeal the project with bids going to different hardware providers, he said. Whereas smaller chains or franchisees are more prone to contract with an integrator to handle the entire project, from installation to continued content management and managed services, offering integrators an ongoing revenue stream.

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