A Fast Food Restaurant Chain Serves Up Digital Signage

Introduction

Fast food restaurant chains operate in a fast-paced industry focused on customer satisfaction. Restaurant patrons must be kept informed and continually provided with further customer opportunities such as group activities, price promotions and special events. So fast food restaurant chains are making ever greater use of digital signage technology to further connect with their customers, and to provide time-sensitive promotional information while entertaining them in the dining area or as they are killing time waiting in line.
One fast food chain in Southeast Asia adopted a network managed Digital Signage System two years ago for storefront digital media campaigns. Originally, this company used commercial grade PCs as their hardware platform. However, the commercial systems were unreliable and suffered frequent downtime. Advertising revenue was lost as a result, which causedintense frustration on the part of the end users. In addition, that signage system couldn’t support the current market demand for playback of high-definition content.

Solutions

As the previous signage system had fallen short in meeting expected reliability and stability, the fast-food chain decided to phase-in an Advantech Digital Signage solution. Advantech met and exceeded the customer’s expectations by offering the following:
• Compact-size, industrial-grade digital signage player based on the DSA-3300 series. The DSA-3300 supports high-definition video (up to 720p) and is capable of integrating an optional TV-tuner to offer live TV content for digital signage
• Robust operating system based on Windows XP Embedded with Enhanced Write Filtering (EWF) and Watchdog Timer
• Powerful and cost efficient CampaignManager digital signage software developed by one of Advantech’s software partners.
Our client decided to apply their new digital signage network as a communications and entertainment tool; the main goals being to delight customers and help them to enjoy their meals inside the restaurant. Video content is narrowcast to the new digital signage network. The display media includes MPEG 2-based high-definition advertising clips, live TV programs, and sporting events. RSS feeds are also created from the content provider’s dedicated RSS server. RSS content is useful for revenue-generating, text-based, classified advertisements, and is also wonderful for displaying important real-time messages like news clips or weather reports.
 

System

Benefits

• Advantech offers lower total cost of ownership with long-term product support, and spare partssupport
• Less worry about constant maintenance and reliability problems such as those plaguing commercial-grade PC systems
• Versatile high-definition playback