C. Stephanidis (Ed.): Posters, Part II, HCII 2011, CCIS 174, pp. 443–447, 2011. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2011 Can Digital Signage Help Consumers Eat Healthier? Anicia Peters 1 and Brian Mennecke 2 1 Human Computer Interaction Program, Virtual Reality Applications Center, 1620 Howe Hall 2 Supply Chain and Information Systems, College of Business, 3313 Gerdin, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa, 50011, USA anpeters@iastate.edu, mennecke@iastate.edu Abstract. Digital signage has become prevalent in public spaces, but consum- ers are faced with many choices from various displays with the result that con- sumers often ignore important information. To “recover” customer attention, various retailers have recently begun to deploy dynamic digital menu boards, which are plasma screens that combine the power of video with multimedia content. We examine the effect of these boards on healthy eating, a topic that has been on the national agenda for some time as Americans struggle with obe- sity. The introduction of a specialized form of dynamic digital menu boards in fast food restaurants has the potential to increase unhealthy eating if retailers were to use them to “upsell” consumers to higher margin but less healthy menu items. By the same token, these boards could also be used to influence con- sumers to make healthier food choices resulting in benefits to the consumer and society. Keywords: digital dynamic menu boards, digital signage, healthy eating, consumer decision-making, vividness. 1 Introduction Our research question focuses on the effects of video and static image food ads in dynamic digital menu boards on consumer decision-making processes and, specifi- cally, on healthy food choices. Digital signage is a type of public computer- generated plasma display screen that presents multimedia content [3]. Due to the prevalence of these displays in public spaces, the quest for more atten- tion-grabbing features, and significant advances in technology has enabled digital signage venders to offer signage with advanced functionality and eye-catching con- tent. Recently, many fast-food restaurants have begun to replace traditional menu boards with dynamic digital menu boards that are capable of displaying video and live news feeds [13]. A retailer can take advantage of one of digital signage’s prominent features; that is, the potential to immediately update content at the source outlet or from a centralized location [3, 13]. As an illustration of the importance of these emerging technologies, fast food res- taurants such as Wendy’s have already begun to deploy and test video menu boards [13]. Wendy’s uses these technologies to embed video ads with the goal of “grab- bing” the attention of the user and redirecting their focus to particular menu items.