Digital Signage Startup Brings On Actor Mark Wahlberg As Strategic Advisor

March 2, 2020 by Dave Haynes

A San Francisco digital signage company has turned to the power of celebrity to help market and guide its solutions – with actor Mark Wahlberg coming on as a strategic advisor.

Wahlberg had already been an early investor and customer of Raydiant’s restaurant-centric solution, deploying it in the family-owned Wahlburgers fast casual burger chain.

This announcement, says the PR, falls on the heels of the (three-year-old) company’s recent announcements surrounding a $7M fundraise, strategic partnerships with enterprise customers including BlueJeans, PosterMyWall, SinglePlatform and Soundtrack Your Brand, as well as the appointment of industry veteran Bobby Marhamat as CEO.

Wahlberg first became involved with Raydiant (formerly Mira, Inc.) when searching for an interactive video platform that could host multiple applications at his family-owned, LA-based Wahlburgers’ restaurant while hosting a 2017 NBA All-Star party.

Raydiant’s platform that centrally deploys and manages applications across many screens provided a solution that included multi-screen, cloud-based displays with interchangeable menus, video assets, two-way communication and more.

Beyond this, together, Wahlberg and Raydiant leveraged the platform to create a deeper interactive experience branded “Virtual Visitor,” that enabled the BlueJeans technology to engage users in multiple locations to fully experience the Virtual Visitor application including bringing Walhberg’s mother, at home in Boston, into the LA-based event. The Raydiant/Wahlburgers engagement was displayed in the A&E “Wahlburgers” Season 9, Episode 4 (under the former name Mira).

“We are excited to have Mark and his team closely involved in and behind Raydiant’s platform having worked closely with him and his team since our early days to develop a solution to make virtual visits from Mark and his family a possibility at his franchise restaurants,” said Bobby Marhamat, Raydiant CEO. “With Mark a key part of the advisement team and an early investor, we will be able to deliver what we have done for Wahlburgers on an infinite level across SMB areas everywhere.”

“The team at Raydiant has done a great job creating unique in-store experiences for consumers. I’m impressed with what they’re doing for brick-and-mortar companies, and happy to get involved in spreading the word to other businesses,” Mark Wahlberg stated.

Raydiant has built a rich application platform that offers videoconferencing (with BlueJeans), rich drag-and-drop content editing (with PosterMyWall), unified digital menu management (with SinglePlatform) and fully-licensed B2B music (with Soundtrack Your Brand). These partnerships further enable Raydiant to offer a best-in-class enterprise solution for dynamic displays.

I have no idea how involved the actor is in the day to day of the burger chain, but he would certainly know more about restaurant ops than the average Hollywood star. He may well have useful ideas to contribute, but the thing not really stated, but really at play here, is the power of celebrity.

I would not, as an example, be writing about this if Raydiant brought in someone who’s an industry expert on QSR and fast casual operations. So it already worked, in one respect.

If Wahlberg turned up at a stand at, let’s say, a restaurant trade show, that would draw crowds and generate buzz.