The Digital Signage Role in Restaurant Digital Menu Boards

I had a dream about six months ago wherein I was back in grade school and Martin Luther King Jr.’s grandson was in my class. He was seated in front of me, dressed in a grey suit. Can you see the irony here: I had a dream about the grandson of the guy who had a dream. Crazy coincidences abound. The reason I bring this up is simply because I personally have a dream. My dream has to do with digital menu boards (DMB). I have a dream!

I have a dream that one day all restaurant menu boards will be replaced by something digital!

I have a dream that digital menu boards with dynamic content will replace expensive, ineffective, and static menu boards!

I have a dream that even the average restaurant owner will see a return on both investment and customer satisfaction through use of DMBs!

Ok, enough with the MLK mockeries. In all seriousness though, digital signage will eventually play a huge role in restaurant menu boards. No doubt about it! Eventually nearly every menu board in this country will become digital and many will be touch screen enabled. Mark my words.

Obstacles

As always, content may pose one of the biggest issues here. Giving restaurants the turnkey solution necessary to be able to run their menus capably without interruption from their regular course of business will be key. No restaurant owner, especially the owner of a single restaurant or a small chain will wish to spend too much time managing a network of digital displays. “They had better work and be reliable!”

Another obstacle could include the instability of the restaurant business in general. I once heard a statistic that 90% of restaurants fail within the first year. While this statistic itself may be a bit skewed and contained heretofore unrecognized lurking variables, the message is clear: the restaurant business can be unstable.

In addition, championing restaurant owners can sometimes be difficult. Pilot(s) will most likely be necessary to reel in the fish. Said pilots will require created content, usually the support necessary to make it all “turnkey,” and, of course, patience.

Making the signs turnkey and reeling in customers for the long-haul are some of the most difficult aspects of installing DMBs. But if your pilot is good, and it should be, then you stand to show them the true power of what digital has to offer over static signage.

Benefits

Despite the fact that there are those whose digital menus have been able to help garner regular sales-lift, dynamic digital menus spice up restaurant and fast food venues like none other. I was at a pizza buffet the other night and directly above those taking payment at the cash register were two, thinly bezeled digital displays rotating through the different prices. It really made a huge difference to the environment and the ambiance of the restaurant. It made a statement right when you walked in that said, “blam!” Not only were they running the menus on a loop with some nice rotating content (the crowd wasn’t there for longer than 5 minutes at a time), but they also had some MRSS feeds displaying results for the latest college football scores–perfect for a pizza joint. If I had not left my cell phone in the car, I would have snapped a picture of it to show how nice of a install it was. Such a screen really makes a profound statement.

There are some food service companies who have used digital signage, not as a digital menu specifically, but as a salesperson. For instance, the particular company I am referring to was looking to increase per-customer margins by selling add-ons: bacon, onions, and cheese. While a regular DMB can perform this function, this particular entity did not wanted to make a distinction between the single screen that would grace their restaurants from the several large static signs which were mounted behind the counter. After running the pilot in 20 locations, they found a sales lift of over 10% (after 6 months of before/after measurement)–more than enough to justify the expenditure of installing the DMBs…er, upsell signs.

With the reported decrease in investment costs for digital signage, it’s only a matter of time before all the DMBs in the world go digital!