Digital menu boards are the latest choices of most of the restaurant owners. They are the perfect ways to display menu and tempt customers to order for the same. Popularity of electronic menu boards can be judged from the fact that the QSR menu boards are designed to meet the needs of the restaurant owners and the customers.

Digital Menu Boards and Quick Service Restaurant or QSR.

Typical digital menu boards at work.

The main demand of customers from a QSR is the fastest service. Whether it is a breakfast or a lunch or a dinner every customer in a QSR, like to get the foods and beverages at the earliest. And a digital menu board can meet that demand of the customers.

A digital menu board displays the menus at the most attractive way. It also makes the menus appealing to the viewers by the help of its resolution and brightness. Now this not only enhances the visibility of the menus you offer, but also tempts the viewers to try those foods and beverages. In this way a digital menu board is increasing your sales figure.

Digital menu boards are easy to maintain. You can change contents in no time. Thus, you are also able to specify the menus for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. This will help the customers to decide upon the menus they want and they can order at the earliest.

You can also display videos through these menu boards. And it is an obvious fact that videos are more effective ways to reach your message to your customer base than any other media like print media.

Digital Menu Boards Are the Cost-Effective Advertising solutions for QSRs.

These electronic menu boards are also cost effective. They do not need technicians to add new contents and hence you can save your money from spending each time you want to change your menus or contents. These boards are also durable. And this feature makes them highly cost-effective solutions for advertising. They display better images and bright contents, which help you to catch the attention of your customers. By using any USB flash drive you can upload any content or image even from a remote location. Hence you are saving your time and costs.

You can also draw customers by using the outdoor digital menu boards. In this way you are pushing up your sales figure without spending much on your advertising. Thus, it can be said that the digital menu boards are the best solutions for advertising of a QSR.

We manufacture a range of outdoor digital signage totem units as well as supplying digital menu boards.

An outdoor digital poster seems an odd way to advertise until you look at how fast they have a return on investment, these cost effective outdoor advertising displays are used to promote products and services to anyone passing by.

Outdoor digital poster Vs. regular digital poster.

As you can imagine a regular digital poster is designed and used fundamentally for indoor use, to promote the company’s products and services once the prospect has entered the premises, it is a low cost solution. An outdoor digital poster has been designed and manufactured to work in all weathers outdoors to advertise to prospects passing to entice them inside the store to buy the product or service advertised, this works perfectly well for QRS’s (Quick Serve Restaurants). As the menu can be displayed on the outdoor digital poster and during the morning rush to work, will appeal to people passing by.
Putting a standard digital poster outdoors would the same as putting a TV outside and leaving it out all year, no matter what the weather and would certainly fail in no time without adequate protection.

What is an outdoor digital poster?

These outdoor digital signage solutions are designed to be used outdoors throughout the year and come complete with a high brightness screen (with a minimum of 1000 nits) for outdoor use complete with a built in media player within a protective outdoor casing. The advertising screen is viewed through an anti-reflective, toughened glass panel, ensuring the ads can be seen even in direct sunlight and providing the protection needed for use outdoors.

Outdoor digital poster uses.

We have already mentioned restaurants who use this type of advertising solutions, now this solution allows businesses such as car repair shops to advertise outside their premises. Cinemas can use an outdoor digital poster outside the cinema to promote an event or new showing. Car dealerships can advertise their range of cars to passers by as well as their range of stock vehicles they have for sale. The use is endless with an outdoor digital poster and by creating the content using free software on the internet they can even be used for outdoor advertising at airports, ferry terminals and bus stations.

We manufacture a range of outdoor LCD enclosures as well as supplying outdoor digital poster solutions.

A non loop LCD enclosure is a protective steel housing to protect the internal hardware from damage when deployed in psychiatric units.

Why use a non loop LCD enclosure?

The protective cases protect the internal hardware from any abuse they may encounter, for instance if a screen was not protected in a psychiatric unit the risk to the LCD display is high for damage and this will reduce the life of the screen by weeks, due to the volatile environment that is in a psychiatric unit.

So imagine the issues if a patient smashed a screen not only the extra replacement costs for the display, but to the patient and the fellow patients as the damaged screen can be used as a potential weapon. Not only does the non loop LCD enclosure protect the hardware but also prevents patients from self-harming.

Sizes that the non loop LCD enclosure units are available in.

The non loop LCD enclosure range of units is available for screens from 17” to 55” these are perfect for either patient’s rooms or even general reception areas were much larger screens up to 55” are used. Generally finished in either black or white powder coating.

Construction of a non loop LCD enclosure.

Constructed from thick steel sheet, welded for maximum strength and with locked using high security locks, so that the enclosure cannot be opened by unauthorised personnel. These non loop LCD enclosures are mounted to the wall using 4 anchor bolts and cables are fed into the enclosure by a rear access panel in the protective housing.

The units are manufactured with the patient’s safety in mind and this is the reason why these are occasionally referred to as sloping sided LCD enclosures. So that the patients cannot tie item of clothing or bedding around the unit and harm themselves, even the corners are radius’s so that if a patient knocks their head on a corner it will result in a minimal injury.

There are units that also have the facility to allow the management to change DVDs on the screens when used in the patient’s rooms. With access panels on the sloping sides this is possible but it does depend on the quantity required.

We manufacture a range of LCD enclosures as well as a range of non loop LCD enclosure units.

Interactive digital signage display units are being considered for many areas around London, especially during August and September for the both the Olympics and Paralympics, discover what is available.

Who will be using interactive digital signage display solutions?

Let us look at who will use this type of advertising – many hotels are investing in interactive digital signage display kiosks, these are being used in the reception areas of hotels to meet and greet guests, they also provide information on local attractions, restaurants and even theater shows.

Some parts of London are deploying outdoor interactive digital signage display kiosks, with single and multi-touch screens as part of way finding, so tourists can find their way to the various attractions throughout London, this then boosts trade at the attractions whilst also local restaurants benefit from being fully booked and hotels benefit by having very limited availability.

Restaurants can use an interactive digital signage display on a wall to show the menu, and by touching the screen the user can see what ingredients are used and most importantly if any peanuts or other possible allergy elements are present in the food before they take a table.

What is an interactive digital signage display?

These interactive kiosks can either be floor standing or wall mounted, located indoors or outdoors. They are available in different size screens and come with a media player that stores the content on the internal based hard drive, any updates or revisions can be done over the internet using a hard wired or wireless connection.

The ads can be in different forms including PowerPoint themes, JPG, video, RSS feeds and even SWF files – these provide a fabulous animated solution.

The floor standing kiosks can be bolted to the floor for addition safety and security, whilst the wall mounted units are attached to walls via security frames. Once the wall mounted screen is attached to the wall frame it is secured with tamper proof fasteners.

Interactive digital signage kiosks are being used at the Olympics and this includes from the athletes village (so they arrive on time for their event) as well as for the public, so they can see the event they came for. With the displays having to deal with several different languages, these are all pre-programmed into the hard drive and when someone from France touches the French flag on the screen the content then changes to French.

We manufacture a range of LCD enclosures as well as supplying interactive digital signage display solutions.

Digital menu boards are wide spread and will increase during the London 2012 Olympics, as restaurants and QSR’s vie for passing business from people who are attending the Olympic Games.

Use of digital menu boards during the 2012 Olympics.

Many restaurants and fast food establishments are looking into how they can use digital menu boards before, during and after the 2012 Olympics. These can be used to during the Olympics for up selling meal deals to the passing trade as they walk to and from the Olympic Park, so providing the most attractive digital menu content is essential to tempt them in for breakfast, an early lunch or late dinner.

Digital menu boards after the Olympics.

After the 2012 London Olympics, the same digital menu boards will be used to market QSR menus as it did during the events, but will have certainly paid for themselves. So the extra business is pure profit in terms of advertising costs. These could also be used inside the Olympic Park to reduce queues in the QSR’s and would certainly meet the LOCOG sustainability requirements as well as void management compliance.

Digital signage using digital menu boards.

Example of digital menu boards

A digital menu board is a complete solution that has an LCD screen and a media player built in, just drag the content that will make up the electronic noticeboard and then configure the units to run in either portrait or landscape mode.

These can be used throughout the year to promote upcoming events and even provide promotions for the most profitable food items on the electronic menu display.

Digital menu boards – options.

The options are not endless, the hardware is available in different size displays, such as 40”, 46” and 55”, then you have to decide how you intend on updating the adverts on the media player. You can either use a networked media player that stores the ads on a hard drive or a USB media player that has to be updated manually. Once the application has been reviewed a solution can be picked and the cost effective advertising solution is provided.

Digital menu board solutions have a fast ROI and can even be used to advert other businesses and this additional income stream can pay for the hardware very fast.

We manufacture a range of LCD enclosures, portrait flat panel enclosures and supply digital menu boards.

Digital signage is set to play a major part of the London 2012 Olympics, due to each organisation that is sponsoring the Olympics making a statement for their company.

Digital signage solutions.

We can expect to see both indoor and outdoor digital signage solutions for way finding throughout the Olympic Park and the on site restaurants will also be using digital signage in the form of digital menu boards to promote their menu.

Digital signage reducing queues.

The digital signage solution when used as a digital menu board will help reduce queues because the menu is available in digital, high visual images showing the food offered and these can be seen from the back of the QSR (Quick Serve Restaurant) so by the time the customer is at the till they know exactly what they want to order and this reduces waiting time in line waiting to place your order.

Digital signage used for people who get lost.

Outdoor digital signage kiosks are fitted with touch screens, these units are fitted with an electronic map of the Olympic Park, so if people are lost they can easily find their way back to the stadium, car park or where ever they may wish to go.

The way finding solutions as mentioned above is relatively simple in operation, as when a person touched the screen, they are offered a menu of locations they may wish to get to, if not there is a search panel and by touching the screen a keyboard pops up so the user can type in the location they want and then high return on the onscreen keyboard and the screen then displays the directions form the location of the kiosk to the location the user selected. This is made possible with the use of a GPS media player so the position is fixed from the kiosk.

Screenmedia is planning a walk through the Olympic Park before the event and this will reveal the true extent of how indoor and outdoor digital signage solutions will be used.

Look out for the digital menu boards that are used as a QSR POS system, the outdoor digital signage totem units that are used for way finding and the other digital signage hardware will be used to entertain visitors to the park.

We offer a range of LCD enclosures as well as solutions that will be used at the London 2012 Olympics – our LCD enclosures are being used for protecting digital signage hardware.

QR codes coupled with SMS messaging are being used by a company to combine digital signage with mobile Facebook users.

QR codes could be the answer.

An Irish company (Betapond) have made digital signage in retail outlets interactive by integrating the shoppers smartphones to the digital signage application within the retail outlet. Now this is when the brand managers and marketers come into their own as now they can offer the shoppers discount coupons and other promotions through the mobile telephone platform. From being rewarded for taking quick surveys to enter treasuring hunts, customers can use their mobile phone to make online transactions and then post social comments about their experience online whilst still in store.

There are other organisations who have created apps for Twitter, etc to engage with digital signage so brand managers can market to their target audience and their friends on Facebook and other social networking sites.

What are QR codes?

These QR codes are pieces of static information in the form of a group of black and white blobs as below.

This image can be scanned using a mobile or cell phone and can then provide information such as special offers, additional information such as on business cards can be linked to social profiles.

Some digital signage integrators have been using proximity marketing and this integrates with the SMS messing used by mobile and cell phones so using them together can be great for increasing brand awareness for example at a restaurant, people can scan the QR codes or send an SMS message to get discount vouchers on the menu for future visits to the restaurants.

Proximity marketing is used to advertise to mobile and cell phone owners who pass by the hardware or are in range of it, it then broadcasts a message to the phone user in the form of a discount, this could be a free coffee with a bacon roll or a discount haircut.

QR codes, SMS and Proximity marketing.

The hardware is available for this type of marketing and will certainly separate you from your competitors when you start using it, so which hardware and software application will you use?

We offer a range of digital signage solutions including QR codes solutions.

Floor standing digital signage hardware comings in many different variations, from advertising in hotels through to advertising businesses at the entrance of an office block.

Use of floor standing LCD digital signage.

Usually the floor standing LCD digital signage are used to display advertisements on a large screen in a portrait position, the content can be stored locally on a USB media player that is built into the kiosk housing. But when an organisation has multiple units in multiple locations they usually use a network media player that is built into the housing, so that the content can be updated from one central location.

Company directories.

When you enter an office block you are usually met with a stern receptionist or a security guard, however there are some forward thinking organisations and management companies using floor standing LCD digital signage solutions to display a directory of companies that are in the office block. Then when you touch the screen, you are then taken to a page that shows the companies profile, this can be the history and what the business does, so that visitors can see an overview of the company.

Touch screen floor standing LCD digital signage.

This floor standing LCD digital signage is fitted with multi touch screens at the correct height for everyone to use and complies with the disability discrimination act, so everyone can use them.

The technology inside these LCD digital signage allows the screen to be plugged directly into the media player, so once the screen is touched it activates the hard drive and the folder that contains the relevant company information is displayed, just as though you click on a web page.

Size of screens used in floor standing LCD digital signage.

These units are available in 42” and 47” size screens in landscape position and have the facility to be fastened to the floor for additional security, to prevent the hardware from being stolen.

The media player in these units is very similar to the hard drive on a computer and the drive will display most kinds of formats that are associated with webpages.

We offer a range of LCD digital signage solutions including floor standing LCD digital signage solutions.

Portrait outdoor advertising screens are used as a digital signage solution for an all year round solution; learn what makes portrait outdoor advertising screens so different.

Digital signage using portrait outdoor advertising screens.

Digital signage historically has used screens that have been positioned in the landscape position and this is why many companies think they can use a TV screen that has been made for home use, but they will certainly be misinformed and will result in costly replacement screens. This is why using a commercial screen is essential for any digital signage deployment, the other advantage with a commercial grade screen is that the screen can be mounted in a portrait position, this cannot be achieved using a regular TV screen you would find in your home as there is no way to rotate the image, on top of this a commercial grade screen is designed to have a lifespan of 50,000 hours, this is to over 5 years of continual use 24×7!

Sizes of portrait outdoor advertising screens.

These portrait outdoor advertising screens are available in a number of sizes from 40” to 65”, because we all know that the larger the advertising solution the better the result for the advertiser.

Updating the content on a portrait outdoor advertising screens.

Now updating and providing fresh content if the digital signage solution is to be successful, this can be achieved by either using a built in media player or a network enabled media player. Apart from the cost the differences can be offset against labour costs. Imagine if you had a member of staff that every day or week had to remember to update the old content with the fresh and you had 2 or 3 screens, this could be easily overlooked due to high workload and the pressures of work.

The network solution as you can imagine connects to either a wireless 802.11b/g wireless network or a hard wired network. There are 3G and GPS media players but these will be covered in later articles.

Any corporate organisations need to control the content from one central location to ensure the brand is run as a consistent brand and image and this is done using an internet connection and the networked media player. These media players are rather sophisticated as the screens can be divided in to zones, ads can be scheduled to update at a pre-set time and date. Day parting is also enabled using the schedule function.

We manufacture a wide range of protective, outdoor digital signage enclosures that are used for protecting portrait outdoor advertising screens.

Digital advertising is a budding advertisement strategy employed all over the world and mainly using the advertising LCD displays for displaying the ads.

These screens are capable of displaying advertisement in high-definition of videos and images to attract various customers. These screens are used in restaurants, shopping malls, theaters and other public places for promoting of goods and services. The advertisement information is controlled by specialized professionals from the control room. The digital signage LCD displays are an electronic display system used for advertisement by using a combination of formats including image, video and audio. Providing the enormous screens we see in shopping malls and football stadiums for commercial advertisement purposes.

Protecting advertising LCD displays.

The protective LCD enclosures used for protecting these gigantic screens from the natural elements such as rainfall and bright sunlight. This prevents the LCD screen from failing due to the climate, anti glare glass is used to make the LCD screen displayed information readable. The digital signage system can be use as indoor and outdoors for displaying their products. These LCD screens are very helpful to many business organizations to attract potential customers towards their products and improving brand awareness. The advertising LCD enclosures are waterproof and they will withstand any climatic change no matter how extreme.

Different types of advertising LCD displays.

Typical advertising lcd displays

A digital poster is controlled by a specialized software package and allows images, audio and video formats to be engaged in the system in the form of dynamic advertising. Advertisements are displayed on these advertising displays almost automatically, this can be done by creating a show schedule. LCD advertisement videos appeal to a wide market sector, so this type of marketing is beneficial by increasing the product and brand awareness.

The LCD screens are very dynamic and flexible and it can use for various advertising strategies. The initial investment for this electronic noticeboard is  comparable to the digital posters. The content can be as complex as required as this type of hardware is best suited for complex solutions.

The digital menu board has the capacity of displaying 12k million color options, this advertising board is capable of displaying information in any formats including 3D graphics, animation and software developed applications used as advertised. This makes is much easier for advertising agencies to use advertising LCD displays for marketing of a clients brand or product.

We manufacture a wide range of protective LCD enclosures, including the portrait flat panel enclosure to protect advertising LCD displays.