Technology: Board Games

Technologically advanced menu boards help customers navigate the bill of fare.

By Lisa Bertagnoli, Contributing Editor -- Chain Leader, 1/1/2003

At nine Phoenix-area McDonald’s restaurants, there’s no chance that customers will try to order a burger before 10:30 a.m. Nor will seeing a promotion on television but not in the stores confuse customers.

That’s because the stores have digital menu boards. Rather than traditional translights and slats, the rear-screen projection boards display menu prices, promos and descriptions downloaded from a computer.

The Phoenix-area McDonald’s are among a handful of quick-service restaurants opting for digital, rather than traditional menu boards. Operators like Ken Clement, who owns the Phoenix McDonald’s, say the newfangled boards help customers sort out increasingly complicated menus; free managers to spend more time on the floor and less on a ladder; and enable continuity of messages from restaurant to restaurant within a chain.

Faster and Easier
Such technology has grown increasingly important as quick-service menus become more involved, says Dick Adams, a former McDonald’s franchisee who is now a San Diego-based consultant. “Too many menu items is an industry problem,” he says. “The challenge is to get everything on the board and make it readable.”

Several companies offer the technology, which works like this: All the information required for a menu board—prices, descriptions, promotions, photos—are computer generated, then stored on a Web site. Using a passcode, store managers can access the Web site from a store computer or laptop, and download that information to the menu boards via an ISDN, DSL or other high-speed connection. The menu boards can be changed hourly, to reflect different dayparts; weekly, to promote specials; and/or monthly, to tout meal deals and other promotions.

The boards themselves are based on three types of technology: CRTs, which work like a home television set; LCDs, akin to a computer laptop screen; and gas plasma screens, which are similar to flat-screen televisions.

One Message
Three years ago, Clement spent about $25,000 per restaurant to install digital menu boards in an effort to conserve labor and provide promotional continuity among his restaurants. (Ninety restaurants in the Phoenix market use the same boards, he says.)

Before the digital boards, unit managers had to wait for translights to be shipped from the advertising agency, then install them. The process ate up anywhere from five to 10 labor hours a month, and sometimes proved an exercise in frustration when translight packages would arrive in the mail incomplete. “Sometimes [the installation] was timely; sometimes it was three days late,” Clement says.

Nowadays, MarketForward/Siren Technologies, the Chicago-based company that supplied the digital menu boards, ships promotional material as soon as it is ready, and managers download it to all the restaurants when appropriate. When McDonald’s launched its “Who Wants to be a Millionaire” promotion two years ago, all 90 restaurants executed the promotion at the exact moment, providing continuity of message to the entire Phoenix market, Clement says. “That ability to have continuity is critical,” he says.

In fact, all menu information is timely these days, Clement says. The board is hooked to a clock that posts breakfast items during breakfast hours, then changes the board over to lunch and dinner items promptly at 10:30 a.m. Segregating menu information by daypart helps customers make decisions more quickly, he says.

Another benefit is that the moving images capture customers’ attention and result in higher sales for promoted products, Clement says. When featured on the menu board, slow-selling items, for instance the Filet-O-Fish, see a 1 percent to 2 percent bump in sales, he says.

While Clement spent about $25,000 per store to install the menu boards three years ago, he says that newer gas plasma boards, in test in other McDonald’s markets around the country, cost about 30 percent less.

Menu Merchandising
Like Clement, executives at Atlanta-based Popeyes Chicken & Biscuits hope that digital menu boards will help prevent customer confusion as the menu grows in scope. In the past two years, Popeyes has added snacks, more desserts and rice-bowl entrees to its menu as part of the chain’s reimaging as an authentic New Orleans dining experience, says Kristi Strickland, marketing manager for the 1,672-unit chain. “The menu is expanding, and it’s hard to merchandise it on static menu board,” she explains.

One solution might be digital menu boards, which the chain is testing in six Atlanta-area locations. The boards implement CRT technology and use content developed at Allure Fusion Media, an Atlanta-based software and content-management firm.

The menu boards display daypart-appropriate menu items and push limited-time promotions, as do the McDonald’s board. They also feature an order-confirmation system. As customers order items, they are displayed so customers can check for accuracy. The boards also suggestive-sell beverages, desserts and sides. “It’s a merchandising tool as people are ordering,” Strickland says.

The boards were installed in the summer of 2001. So far, the six stores with the boards have posted sales 5 percent to 10 percent higher than stores with traditional boards, Strickland says. Thanks to the merchandising, check averages have increased, and so have transactions. “We didn’t think [the technology] would do much for transactions, but it is driving frequency,” she says.

She would not reveal the cost of the boards, but a spokesman from Allure says the monthly cost, depending on whether the boards are leased or purchased, can range from $150 to $450 per store.

A Quick Fix
The only drawback to the boards has been a technological glitch that was quickly remedied. At first, heat from the many fryers in Popeyes’ kitchens caused the monitors to blank out, Strickland says. A cooling system installed under the monitors solved the problem, she says.

While the chain has yet to quantify labor savings or even whether the order-confirmation system results in more accurate orders, Strickland, like Clement, says she likes the continuity the digital system offers. “When I change a promotion, I can go on the Web and change it Sunday night,” she says. “This way, there’s more control.”