Solution Spotlight: Digital Signage & Content Management System
Customer: Fortune 500 facility management company
Location: Cleveland, Ohio
Highlights
The customer desired to transform the appearance of their food concession stands and increase its ability to provide dynamic content to its food and beverage menus. The need for improved communication would serve as a means to deliver new content such as live game feeds, food item specials and custom advertising. The Cisco Digital Media Suite solution offered the customer a complete range of possibilities to meet their requirements and the flexibility to update content remotely.
Benefits
- Patrons are noticeably aware of the content on the menus and are updated on live action taking place on the arena floor which has led to an increase in sales.
- Each screen is able to show its message individually or in groupings depending on the product offerings or event.
- The system's network and content management system allows the concession environment to be updated simultaneously and the LCDs to be powered up and down automatically reducing overall energy costs.
Business Need
The customer, who was contracted with a major downtown indoor sports and event arena to provide food and beverage services for all events held within the arena, desired to transform the appearance of their food concession stands and increase its ability to provide dynamic content to its food and beverage menus. The need for improved communication would also serve as a means to deliver new media such as live game feeds, food item specials and custom advertising. There are 31 concession locations within the arena which needed to have the old static menus replaced with LCD menu displays.
This customer was also in need of an organization to assist in the creation of the electronic content and menu designs for use with the new LCD menu technology. It was important to increase product awareness coupled with providing the customers a pleasurable experience viewing the information. As a future goal, this customer was also interested in reporting point of sale results based on the menus and special advertisements being displayed on the digital signage. They desired a way to also manage the content remotely through a network so they could schedule and change the menus and layouts on the fly. At this point, the customer only had 42 days to have the project completed before the beginning of a professional sports team season.
Solution
After reviewing the customer’s goals, MCPc Solution Consultants offered two separate options to ensure that the customer was able to review a wide range of solutions. The customer chose MCPc to provide a Cisco Digital Media Suite (DMS) solution. The Cisco solution offered the customer a complete range of possibilities to meet their requirements and the flexibility to expand as longer term requirements or content needs to be changed. The MCPc team helped design and install 90 menu screens in 31 concession stand locations throughout the arena.
The project also included the integration and programming of the network’s centralized server technology for managing the screens and all of the content. Each screen was designed with the flexibility of being able to show its own unique message or in groupings depending on the concession stand products or event venue. The content management system also allowed for the LCD menus to be automatically powered up and powered down so no one would need to intervene at each location.
During the integration process, MCPc also involved a creative services team to consult with the customer’s Marketing Group to develop the electronic menu design layouts and content. The team offered a full range of content creation services that accommodated for managing each unique event venue and an easy methodology for changing the menus regularly. MCPc worked diligently to ensure that the customer was in a position to simply manage the new system.
Results
The project was completed on time and within budget. This client’s new way of communicating their product offering can also be integrated into point of sales to measure their efforts. The appearance of the concession stands is more dynamic and colorful while keeping patrons captivated.
The customer has benefitted by an increase in concession sales and their visitors are noticeably aware of the activity and content on these dynamic menus. The concession environment can dynamically change without any physical and local changes through their network with the flexibility to grow as their requirements change.
If your business is looking for a dynamic video communication or advertising alternative, MCPc is ready to talk with you about your objectives and customize a video solution to meet your needs and budget.