Pulled up to our local Sonic the other day and saw something I don't associate with junk fast food: A crisp point-of-sale touch screen containing a clean and efficient user interface.
Why is that noteworthy? First, brand. Second, money.
Brand
Brand is much more than colors and logo. You're smart, so you know this already: Like any corporateion, Sonic has an identity, a visual standard that allows me to instantly recognize the Sonic sign and the restaurant. You don't mistake a Sonic restaurant for a MacDonald's. That, however, is recognition. Brand depends on how people feel about you, not just whether they recognize you.
People's perceptions of you take shape where the rubber meets the road (in this case almost literally, seeing as we were sitting in a car) — the point where your customers interact with you.
That's where those screens are such a nice touch. Fast food is cheap, so I'd have expected Sonic to go cheap on the point-of-sale system as well. Maybe a grainy, small screen, easily scratched and hard to read. They didn't. The crispness of the screen and the clean design are a pleasant surprise precisely because I didn't expect them. Do they affect the quality of the food in any way? Objectively, no, but they affect my perception of the place. The human brain is funny like that — the quality of one aspect of a thing tends to pre-dispose your perception of another aspect of the same thing, even when the two aspects have no actual influence on each other.
Good for your brand, Sonic.
Money
Let's say that you're in charge of budgets, and “brand” and “perception” sound nebulous next to the hard, measurable reality of cost. What is your ROI? Well, brand has inherent value — for every person, every day, who is on the fence about stopping at Sonic or some competitor, brand image, positive or negative, will tip that person one way or the other. Yay or nay. Yay is income, nay is not. More important to the point here, however, is this: “…we've seen an increase in average check as opposed to a static board”, says Sonic's VP of investor relations* (Digital Signage Today). The system allows Sonic to do more with the screens than simply display your order and take payment; it's also a revenue driver.
Could they have done the same with cheaper screens? Probably, but cheaper hardware creates the expectation of a cheaper service. Lowered expectations cheapens your brand.
Nice touch screens, Sonic! I'll be back for more cranberry limeades.
* I know, if you're the VP of investor relations you have every incentive to call the project a smashing success, no matter what the actual results are. However, I think the statement is significant if for no other reason than it's readily verifiable; if it were just spin, that would show up on the annual shareholder report, right?
