Jose Pepper’s restaurant executives approved an integrated digital approach developed and managed by Keywest Creative. This resulted in successfully combining custom creative with cloud-based digital signs and tablet-based kiosks to facilitate seven key areas of improvement from cost savings to increasing sales and customer satisfaction.
LENEXA, Kan. (May 7, 2015) – Jose Pepper’s Border Grill & Cantina, a popular Kansas City-based restaurant chain, teamed with Keywest Technology and its creative division, Keywest Creative, to improve in-store communications at its 14 Kansas City-area locations. Combining digital signage technology with creative to form an integrated solution, Keywest Technology installed Breeze media players to power digital signs in the restaurants’ reception and back-of-house areas. In addition to the digital signs, the integrated campaign included a tablet-based kiosk designed specifically to promote the Belly rewards program at each restaurant.
Brian Bibler, Chief Designer at Keywest Creative, developed the advertising campaign for the Belly rewards system that included a custom stand that securely holds a 10-inch tablet that runs the Belly rewards app. Bibler noted that it was important to “place the Belly promotion…at the point-of-wait to stimulate awareness and encourage usage of the Belly rewards program.”
From March 2013 through August of 2014, the cross-promotion campaign produced almost 17,500 new users, and with the daily reminders promoted at the point-of-wait, Belly users grew to an average of over 100,000 check-ins monthly and are still growing. These results are “very successful”, according to Brent Sullivan, Jose Pepper’s food & marketing strategist.
Additionally, Sullivan considered the question, “How can we better communicate with customers inside the restaurant in real-time while they wait?” To tackle this problem and inject a flavor of the local culture, he decided the digital sign in the waiting area must not only promote food items, but also offer infotainment in the form of local trivia among other engaging media. Keywest Creative developed a digital signage playlist with multiple cross-promotions such as “specials of the day” interspersed with infotainment for the hungry guests waiting in the reception area. According to customer feedback received by service staff and restaurant managers, this tactic has proven to be highly effective at reducing wait-time anxieties, which is one of the seven improvements Sullivan noted with the Keywest Technology solution.
