This is digital signage?

Posted by:
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
I swung in my local Dunkin Donuts for a coffee and donut (actually two). Throughout various industry publications, I remembered reading about Dunkin Donuts looking at and investing in digital signage. It sounded like they were one of the larger restaurant chains who seemed determined to make use of the technology. But is this it?

Dunkin Donuts digital signage

Please, please tell me no. This "sign" looks like one of those digital photo frames they sell in SkyMall (no offense). But that's not the worst part.

It's about 5 feet away from the cash registers, nowhere near where a paying customer would actually see it. The content on it actually isn't that bad. (It's not the greatest either.) But who cares when customers aren't noticing it. 

Now it's entirely possible that this is a franchisee who is just trying something out to see if it works. I have no problem with that. But let me save them some time. It doesn't work. 

With digital signage for retail and restaurants, proper placement is so vital. Couple good placement with "call to action" content and you have yourself a winner. I applaud this location for at least recognizing the value that digital technology can bring to a restaurant but the application needs some serious work. 

Comments for This is digital signage?

Tuesday, March 15, 2011 by Robby Slaughter:
No, that's not digital signage. It's called "abject cluelessness."

Heck, I know almost nothing about digital signage and there's no way I would support that. What a waste!

Go get em, Chuck!
Tuesday, March 15, 2011 by Andrew Angle:
I was blown away when I went to the Greenwood Dunkin Donuts with my fancy stainless steel (aka: professional coffee drinker) mug embossed with a Starbucks logo and... get this... the workers were not allowed to put coffee in my mug because it had someone else's logo on it. They poured the coffee into a styrofoam Dunkin Donuts cup so that, while I was standing there at the register, I could then pour the coffee into my mug. The otherwise unused Dunkin Donuts styrofoam cup was promptly tossed into the trash. Kinda defeats the purpose of trying to be friendly to the environment by carrying my own cup. Perhaps on par with that ridiculousness is seeing that their hostile logo policy damaged their own brand. More than a year has passed and I have not set foot in a Dunkin Donuts anywhere ever since.