Article

More than just a pretty face Part III of III

Unique designs for Family Meds and Burger King set Frank Mayer & Associates apart.

April 9, 2002 by

Frank Mayer & Associates Inc. separated itself from the pack in 2000, thanks to one kiosk design.

The Grafton, Wis.-based company's Family Meds kiosk earned the best of show award at the KioskCom Retail trade show in Chicago last summer.

With a 15-kiosk field test finished, Frank Mayer is in negotiations with Family Meds to deploy as many as 200 kiosks in doctor's offices, clinics and pharmacies across the country by the close of 2001. The kiosks allow users to connect with the Family Meds Web site, order medicine and have it delivered to their home or the nearest Family Meds drug store.

"The beauty of it is, it connects with the doctor's office so that those who are in critical care can have medication sent to them on a time-sensitive standpoint," said Ron Bowers, vice president of Frank Mayer. "It also allows the drug store the opportunity for people to order things that the retailer does not have in stock. It expands his product inventory dramatically."

Frank Mayer specializes in interactive kiosks, point-of-purchase displays, direct marketing and sales promotion. The company has 350 employees -- 150 in the United States and 200 in sales offices in South America and Mexico. It also has an office with its primary partner, Tchai International,in the Netherlands. The company does not disclose its revenue.

Bowers describes Frank Mayer as a full-service kiosk developer and integrator.

"Rather than bits and pieces, we offer (customers) one contact point for everything from the content development to the software development," he said.

One of the reasons Frank Mayer's designs are different is that each one is customized. There are no stock kiosks or design plans.

"Our designs are really interpreted by the environment that they're going to go into," Bowers said. "That means answering questions like who the user will be, what type of specific needs the client ordering the kiosks has and how are individual customers going to use the kiosk."

Family Meds draws attention

The durable, plastic, royal blue and snow white enclosure creates a calming effect. It's an ideal fit for its intended environment. The vertical screen is striking and provides a quick and easy look at the Family Meds Web site. The vertical configuration is a contrast to the horizontal placement of most kiosk screens.

While its looks are striking, the Family Meds kiosk is functional as well. Pull the lever attached to its side, and the machine can be raised for standing users or lowered for those in wheelchairs: a coup in ADA-compliant functionality.

Bowers said his company is so proud of the unit it is considering a patent on the kiosk's design, which he said it would be unusual in the industry.

Frank Mayer has partnered with NetKeyon kiosk projects since 1983, when both were partners with IBM. Netkey developed software for IBM kiosks and Frank Mayer designed kiosk enclosures and handled hardware integration.

NetKey built custom software for the Family Meds project, running on a 14 gigabyte, 600 megahertz Pentium III PC with 64 RAM. Elo TouchSystems Inc. provided the 15-inch vertical touchscreen.

ADA compliance

"Part of the parameters that were established to begin with was to create a design that would have multiple uses," Bowers explained. "They wanted to really create a design that could be used freestanding for anyone who wanted to approach it and access it, yet something in the same unit that someone who's confined to a wheelchair in a doctor's office or clinic could access it without any problems."

It was a challenging project to design the kiosk to meet both groups' needs.

The solution was to explore a series of design directions, using graphic sketches and a foam board. A model is built to show size, dimension and applicability for the environment in which the kiosk will be used.

"It's a very cost-effective way because we can actually spray it to simulate an actual production unit, yet it does not need the tooling necessary or any of the hardware to be established," Bowers said. "We use that so the client can get a feel, ergonomically, how an individual will stand next to it, the ease of them accessing the keyboard, the ease of them accessing the touchscreen. It gives the client a real good visual from the footprint that's going to be used when it's placed in the environment."

Entertaining at Burger King

Burger King called on Frank Mayer to design kiosks to entertain its customers, especially its younger patrons.  

"Burger King was looking for a way to go to a more modern, more unconventional but high tech aspect of entertaining," Bowers said. "They wanted to entertain, but they wanted to inform and educate at the same time."

The company created a unit with memory games, trivia quizzes, geography questions and a camera called the Virtual Fun Center. The camera allows users to put their own face on characters, including Robin Hood, knights in shinning armor and princesses. 

Kim Miller, director of public relations for Burger King, said 700 kiosks have been installed in stores and more are on the way. She said the kiosks provide activities for children at the restaurants in a minimum amount of space.

"There's a number of restaurants that don't have the land to build a playground," Miller said. "By eliminating one booth in the restaurant, a single or double kiosk unit with two screens can be installed."

Content on the units is updated quarterly, and is designed to appeal to preschoolers, though some games appeal to slightly older kids. The first public tests took place in Broward County, Fla. in 1999.

"Consumers said they would make a special trip to Burger King so that their kids could have something fun to do and they could have a nice quiet meal," Miller said.

Miller said the kiosks are hip, with a flashy look that matches Burger King's new company logo. It uses a solid, durable plastic and enclosed in a unit resembling a jungle gym. The kiosks runs proprietary software powered by an Apple iMac computer and features an EloTouch monitor.

"The color selection and the materials used were all tested with kids," Miller said. "We did an exhaustive study on color selection with consumers, what colors evoked happy feelings, while still hanging on to our heritage of Burger King."

The kiosks have a positive effect on in-store sales, according to Bowers, who cited Point of Purchase Advertising Institute statistics that show sales go up 60 to 73 percent when kiosks are placed in retail environments.

According to the Burger KingWeb site, approximately 53 percent of the restaurant's business is drive-thru orders and 22 percent is take-out. So just one in four customers dines in the restaurant. The company reported U.S. sales of $8.7 billion and international sales of $2.7 billion in 2000.

The kiosks, Miller said, help encourage people to eat inside the restaurant and bring in larger groups.

"It makes the restaurant a destination, which is what we want," she said. "People go to work, they go home and then they like having a third place, where they feel they can call their own. It used to be the neighborhood coffee shop. We want Burger King to be that third place. So for families, it offers us an opportunity to try to do that."

The Virtual Fun Center is not a Web-enabled unit, but that could change, Miller said. With a connection to the Internet, the functions of the unit could expand to game play and chats between users across America.

"It's certainly something we would look at down the road," Miller said.