Case Study - Black Rifle Coffee Company

The challenge

Black Rifle Coffee is a veteran-owned Brand with an edgy attitude and cult following that grows community through its dedication and support of US Veterans. Its coffee product and famously irreverent merch is available across its branded stores and multi-brand retail locations Bass Pro, Walmart, Cowboys Stadium, etc. to celebrate its Texas heritage. Creative Realities was hired to infuse digital signage solutions across its branded retail locations, starting with digital menu boards and the CMS platform behind it to support POS integration and ordering.

The Black Rifle client team had a continuous challenge with their existing CMS software which at the time of our win, had been utilized across a network of 30+ locations. They faced recurring challenges with screen performance and stability - which were forever going down without the ability to auto reboot offline status or troubleshoot remotely. The current solution lacked the ability to deploy an enterprise structure that would allow them to execute content by location, daypart, screen or region. Our opportunity was to introduce a next gen digital signage effort to address the CMS and network issues that made supporting this small but growing network, a challenge to own and operate.

A secondary but equally compelling challenge to resolve was the fixed digital menu board presentation template that did not properly allow focus, hierarchy, animation or feature spotlights. Thus, Black Rifle lacked the flexibility needed to keep pace with their competition: to change the menu, automate it, integrate it with POS – and to design it in a way that would optimize sales beyond a single cup of coffee.

The solution

The Black Rifle team welcomed our purpose-built Clarity CMS for F&B to deliver the functionality that would have traditionally taken them weeks to execute. Easy to use, easy to create and upload new items like LTOs with live action and dynamic video integrated throughout the display array.

The Black Rifle team is now able to dynamically change and update the pricing automatically via POS integration in real time, which was a big hurdle to overcome. The Clarity CMS platform offers consistent, stable performance so the down/dark screen issue was no longer a problem that plagued their locations, compromising guest satisfaction and sales.

At the same time, we zoomed out to concentrate on the key consumer behaviors occurring on site, to inform how the digital menu board could be improved from a design standpoint. We saw this opportunity to spotlight specialty items and food – bring those elements and features to the center of the boards, and driving upsell for breakfast and lunch. We also dedicated position to drive new items: coffee on tap, LTO’s, and the other fantastic merch they sold.

The results

We approached the digital menu board redesigned in a way that would achieve sales, transaction ticket and business goals -- and crushed it – designing a solution that brings to life their entire offering by building around their primary category of coffee vs competing with it.

Key guest behaviors were astronomical, and results went through the roof!

Beverage and specialty coffee sales more than doubled
Food items across dayparts increased above 50%
Guest satisfaction scores skyrocketed
It caught the attention of the Franchise community so much so, the cap ex investment buy-in became a non-issue, and solution was embraced at all levels of the organization

Results positively impacted all locations, which have now rolled out to 50+ stores – and a major driver in the expansion of the digital menu board effort and new store development.