Mark Chmiel, Denny’s chief marketing and concept officer gave an interview to adweek where he discussed Denny’s foray into in-restaurant video networks that will be rolling out across Denny’s global chain of restaurants.  In the interview Chmiel reveals that they are considering many non-traditional digital marketing platforms including AOL and social networks.  He also explained that the roll out of their new DOOH (digital out of home) network is intended to up-sell products and enhance the guest experience. What wasn’t mentioned in the article was the share of  advertising revenue that Denny’s would receive for agreeing to exposure it’s customers to a barrage of network ads.

Denny’s is using a DOOH network run by Indoor Direct - a company with a large and growing footprint in large restaurant chains.  Denny’s is allocated 6 minutes a day on the newtork to promote it’s own content – the rest is advertising and/or entertainment programmed by Indoor Direct. Advertisers treat in-restaurant viewers as a higher value audience as these viewers are out in the market already and more likely to act on ads they see so the CPM for these audiences would be considerably higher.

Chmiel optimistically characterises the video network as ‘enhancing the guest experience’. Hard to imagine that offering advertising to your customers enhances anything but your bottom-line but I believe this is just the beginning of a new and growing wave of video marketing and advertising. Any wall or surface that can accommodate an inexpensive video screen will represent a revenue generating opportunity for someone. It will also represent a marketing opportunity for you.