Media Solutions Media Solutions

Case Study: White’s Foodliner’s Deli Menu Boards

Making your customers hungry for your Deli

Pat White is a progressive independent retailer.  I know if you asked Pat he probably wouldn’t say that he’s that progressive but he is.

Pat owns White’s Foodliners.  His stores are located in Pawnee, Oklahoma, and his Kansas stores include Kingman, Medicine Lodge and Phillipsburg.  Pat was among the very first digital signage retailers we began working with when Pat contacted us last year  about helping him with digital menu board solutions for his stores.

If you think that digital menu boards are for large stores with large delis – think again.  In Pat White’s case his stores aren’t 60,000 square feet and they don’t have enormous delis, but they have really great menu offerings that appeal to customers in the towns he serves.

He has a successful Fried Chicken program (Chester Fried) and has a great selection for his customers shopping his hot food cases.

White’s menu selections in their delis change throughout the day and specials change throughout the week.  Pat has a breakfast menu, lunch menu and dinner menu and he is able to attract shoppers to his delis throughout the day with their “day-parting” or ability to have menus appear at the appropriate times each day. Menus change at preset times without any involvement by anyone in the stores.

In addition, White’s is able to promote using a “Meal of the Day”  by simply controlling the day of the week and time of the day that their “Meals of the Day”  are playing on flat screens in their delis.

It was important to Pat to have eye-catching digital menuboards to attract customers during breakfast, lunch and dinner menus and to promote his menus cost effectively.  It was also important to keep costs in check.

Like most of our digital signage customers, Pat bought his own LED monitors (TV’s) for his stores and handled his own installations.  Since he had wi-fi service in his stores he elected to use wi-fi for his digital media players controlling his deli menu boards.

 

The difficulty of promoting in a smaller store size Deli department

It’s not an easy task to promote your deli in a smaller store even with an outstanding deli.  Although you may feature great items on your menu, it’s important to communicate your menu to shoppers as they pass by your deli on the way to the meat department. Grab their attention and their business.

With eye-catching deli menu boards you can feature the variety of your deli menus and gain new customers. It’s also very easy to promote the “Deli Meal Deal of the Day” with a digital menu board.

Here’s some samples of how the digital menu boards look: 

Here’s some screen shots of other menu boards at Whites

So, what should a store expect to pay for a Menu Board?

What are the steps to get moving with new Menu Boards? 

Step 1:  Buy the digital signage monitor (TV).  You can buy any monitor you wish.  Any size, any brand.  The only requirement is that it needs a HDMI plug in.  Any new flat screen you’ll buy is likely to have at least one HDMI plug in.  Good rule of thumb on buying monitors (TV’s)…..better quality may be a little more expensive but well worth it in the long run.

Estimated cost for Step 1:  $250 for a 32″ screen.  $450 for a 42″ screen

Step 2: Buy a mounting bracket and hang the monitor from the wall in your deli.  In most cases your monitor (TV) will be under 25 lbs and most wall mounts are designed for 50 to 100 lbs.  Make sure you’re buying and mounting a wallmount capable of handling the weight of your screen.

Estimated cost for Step 2: About $60 for the wall mount.  Also, it will likely take you 20 to 30 minutes, depending on your skill level installing a simple wall mount.

Step 3: Buy a HDMI cable -Shorter size is better.  You’ll only need about 3′ so no need to buy a 10′ long cable.

Estimated cost:  About $10 on Amazon.com

Step 4:  Call MSC and order your media player(s).  Your player will be sent to our office and our digital signage programmers will program your digital media player to enable it to update content in your store.  It takes us about 2 weeks to process your media player and when we’re through programming it we send it directly to you for installation.

Estimated cost:  $450 to $500 per player plus  mailing expenses.

Step 5: The Media Player arrives at your store.  Attach the adhesive Velcro that comes with your media player to the back side of your monitor and attach your media player.  Then plug your HDMI cable to the media player and your monitor (TV). Also plug in the monitor(TV) to a standard electric outlet.

Step 6: In about 90 seconds your media player will “fire up” and content will begin playingon your monitor.  Your media player will look for new content every five minutes on the internet (you’ll either connect via store wi-fi or ethernet.  Your media player can connect to either) .

At this point, your “one time”  expenses are complete, your screens are installed and playing content.

 

Now, what questions are most frequently asked?

We field lots of questions about digital signage and menu boards.  Here’s the most frequently asked questions:

Q: What brand of monitor(tv) should I buy?

A:  Doesn’t really matter as long as it has an HDMI port. We recommend leading brands like Sharp, Philips, Samsung and Visio.

Q: What if I have one 50″ monitor and one 32″ monitor in my store.  Does this mean that you have to design content in two different screen sizes?

A: Not all all.  Your digital content automatically resizes to whatever screen size you use.

Q:  Do I need to buy a media player for every screen or can I use one media player for all my screens.

A: One media player is needed for each screen.  All of your content will be in High Definition (HD) and you can “split” the content.  Also, you need media players assigned to screens so you can manage the playlist of content to that screen.

Q: Will the media player be streaming from the internet all day?  Will this impact my bandwidth costs?

A:  No, your content will play without the internet.  Your playlist “loop keeps playing without the internet.  However, your media player will check our servers every 5 minutes to see if you’ve created a new playlist.  If not, your playlist continues to loop.  If your player sees that you’ve created a new playlist, it will begin playing your new playlist automatically.

Q:  Can I “over-ride” an existing playlist so that I can broadcast a “special alert” style message on one or all my players at a prescribed date and time?

A:  Yes.  Actually you’ll have the ability to establish two levels of priority so that an existing playlist can be interrupted for a special playlist —- then, at a time you determine it can automatically revert back to your normal playlist.  We’ll show you how to do this.

Q: I have multiple stores.  Can I have one person at my office manage all my stores playlists or does someone at each of my stores need to manage their store playlists?  Can I begin with just one monitor/media player and increase my network to more monitors/media players over time?

A: You can manage playlists and content however you’d like and do so remotely.  As long as you can get a web connection you can change your content and playlist.  If you’d like you can grant permissions for someone in your store to change content as needed.  Many stores do start with just one or two monitors.  You can easily add more screens later if you wish.

Q:  I’d like to create my own content for my store.  Can I create my own animations?

A.     In some cases if you or someone on your staff is able to design your own animations we can work with you to render your designs into HD animations.  There will be a small charge to cover our time to handle the conversion of your designs and make them available to select on your playlists.

Q:  How do I turn on and shut off the digital signage?

A.     If you want to power off  your monitor(s), you’ll simply shut it off with your remote control, just as you do at home.  There is no need to turn off your media player.  It’s a solid state device that can run all the time.  You can unplug it if you wish but it’s not necessary.

Q: What if I decide I want to move my monitors around in my store.  Can I do this?

A.     Absolutely.  As long as you can connect via wi-fi or ethernet, your media player and screens can be moved around your store.  If your wifi works outside your store you can even use digital signage there as well.

Q:  Can I have my monitors (TV’s) mounted vertically (portrait format) vs. horizontally (landscape format) ?

A:    All of our content that is provided in our $10 per week program is formatted for landscape format (like home TV’s).  If you want a portrait orientation for your signage we’ll need to create custom signage for you.  Also, you will have to purchase commercial grade screens vs. consumer grade screens as portrait format won’t work well in portrait format.

Q: How many monitors should I have in my store? Where do stores use digital signage?

A.     We recommend 4 to 5 monitors .  Here’s some ideas for placement in your store(s):

• Meat Department
• Produce Department
• Deli Department
• Deli menuboards
• Bakery Department
• Permanent end displays
• Front lobby “Welcome” areas
• Community bulletin board areas
• Pharmacy
• Beverage/Liquor/Wine
• Dairy, Domestic and Imported cheeses
• Frozen Food
• Health and Nutrition – natural foods
• Employee breakrooms, store offices

Q:  Should I buy 720 or 1080 dpi flat screens?

A:  We’d recommend 1080 screens, especially for 40″ or larger screens but you can use either with our media players.