TECH: Using Digital Signage to Explore Creative Marketing Possibilities
Restaurant digital signage has a lot of business, operational & marketing use cases – and it’s uses extend beyond just letting your diners know what’s new. It’s super useful to making sure your staff is all on the same page, too. Here are three creative marketing ideas for digital signs.
SPORTS: NCAA Football Kicks Off This Week
Yes, it’s still August and we are talking about a full week of football. This week’s Football Preview is ready for you to download and includes the weekly spreads. Starting next week we will also include rankings and spreads, as well as spreads for the NFL. It looks to be a great week of matchups to kick off the newest season of football across the country. So, don’t be caught surprised and download your schedule for this week’s games. Are you ready for some football?
DID YOU KNOWS…
“Dodgers Killer” Upcharge
Houston Astros pitcher Justin Verlander was given a $1 million upcharge for being a “Dodgers killer.” And while that might be shocking, the prices of his other line items are just as bizarre. $10 for cranberry juice? $42 for a salad!? Check it here.
Brewing was Women’s Work
During the 14th Century and before the first Black Death broke out, pro & amateur brewers were everywhere in England. And most of the brewing were done by women. After the plague, ale became more commercialized and thus more profitable. It also meant women were pushed out of the role and by 1500, few unmarried women brewed for profit and married women’s work was hidden behind the public persona of their husbands. We’ll raise a pint to all those women who kept the brewing tradition alive.
The Gender Gap in Alcohol-Attributable Deaths
A major global study published in The Lancet has found the there is no safe level of alcohol consumption. The research compared levels of alcohol use and its impact on health across 195 countries from 1990 to 2016. In many countries, moderate drinking has been associated with health benefits for years and in places like France, a daily glass of red wine has been viewed as good for the heart. The following infographic focuses on the top-10 countries for alcohol attributable deaths, as listed in the report. Specifically, it highlights the massive gender gap in mortality. In the US, alcohol caused 71,00 male deaths and 19,000 female deaths in 2016.
BETTER INGREDIENTS. DIVERSITY TRAINING. PAPA JOHN’S.
Why it matters to you: The pizza chain is requiring employees to attend diversity training.
In an effort to have their employees not act like their founder Papa John’s is requiring their staff go through diversity training. If this sounds very familiar to what Starbuck’s just did that’s because it is, sans stores closing shop for the day. This all comes in an effort by the pizza chain’s new CEO Steve Ritchie to distance themselves from the disgruntled former-CEO John Schnatter and the poor image he created.
Papa John’s and Ritchie are handling this subpar scenario the best they can. They got rid of their problem employee and are working hard to improve their image while making sure their teams are on-board and well trained. Ritchie has his work cut out for him with a company that has just been hemorrhaging money for over a year at this point, but his first actions as CEO are a step in the right direction for their image. Next up will be fixing their menu.
[Source: Eater]
COOL-IFLOWER?
Why it matters to you: Cauliflower has become the new, hot ingredient of the moment.
If you walk around a Whole Foods, Trader Joes or the like, you’ll see a ton of cauliflower items at the moment. You might even think “WTF?” Then you see more and more cauliflower-items popping up and you may even think, “Should this be on our menu?”.
It certainly wouldn’t hurt. The pizza area of this trend is are particularly enticing as the crust is a shredded cauliflower base mixed with cheeses, eggs, and some seasoning. California Pizza Kitchen recently tested this on their menu. It instantly popular and sold so fast that it became a permanent menu item.
Cauliflower is a rare healthy alternative in the pizza department, and it’s gluten-free. This would also mean that you’d have an option on the menu for anyone who has celiac disease but still might want a couple slices of ‘ZA every now and again. We were iffy about this trend at first but the more we looked into it the more it grew on us and it truly is an opportunity for operators that jump on it early. Test it out, experiment with different menu items with it, and we bet it will end up on the menu.
[Source: Thrillist]
