Sweden’s Visual Art Rolling Out Smart Display-Driven Menu Board Solution Across European Subway Stores

November 1, 2022 by Dave Haynes

The Swedish digital signage solutions provider Visual Art is seeing a big spike in its deployed footprint through a digital menu board rollout across Subway sandwich shops in Europe, with 1,300 outlets already converted to its platform and services.

Visual Art, reports our German language content partner Invidis, is the new Subway partner for all types of digital communication in the Subway’s roughly 5,000 branches, in 23 markets. The partnership grew out out a competitive pilot in 2020 that involved several service providers. “In the end, the choice fell on Visual Art, which has now started with the rollout of the software and the takeover of the existing hardware in a first step.”

Part of the evaluation involved testing the use of smart displays and a process that could see large parts of the installation remotely without sending technicians to the restaurants. “Subway was looking for a unified solution and a reliable digital signage software with advanced features that works without an external media player. Our software was able to offer them this solution, and we were also able to switch their 5,500 digital screens to our solution within two months without having to visit a single technician in a restaurant,” explains Pontus Meijer, CEO of Visual Art. “Obviously this is big business for us, and most importantly it shows that our international offering is slowly but surely taking shape. Subway is a perfect fit for us in many ways, both in terms of size and digital presence in stores.” 

The QSR chain is using Visual Art’s own CMS platform, and the contract includes “strategic support in the future development of concepts in the field of digital signage, ongoing service and maintenance, as well as the production of content for all markets from Visual Art’s own studio. The focus on local service and local content also means that through this contract Visual Art accelerates the planned expansion with a local presence in several European countries.”

Along with the pure financial benefits of the deal, Visual Art is also using the pan-European arrangements to establish or build up operations in numerous markets outside of Scandinavia. The largest Subway markets are England, Germany and France.

If four tiled menu displays is the standard build, that would mean some 20,000 software licenses with Subway when the full network is built out.

The company also works with McDonald’s, Circle K, and 7-Eleven.

I did a podcast earlier this year with Anders Apelgren, the company’s CTO …