Dayparting: the right content at the right time

What dayparting means

Dayparting is splitting the day into parts and showing different content in each. Restaurants have always done it with separate breakfast and lunch menus; radio and TV do it with their schedules. On a screen, it means the board shows what someone can actually buy, or needs to know, at the moment they're looking at it.

It matters because a screen gets a few seconds of attention. If those seconds go to a breakfast offer at 3pm, or a lunch deal that ended an hour ago, the screen is working against you. A screen that changes with the day looks looked-after, and it sells what's on.

Start from your day, not from the screen

Before planning any content, write down how a normal day actually runs. When do you open? When does the first rush come, and who is in it? When does the menu change in the kitchen? When is it quiet? Most businesses find three to five natural parts.

A café's day might look like this:

• Opening to 11:00: coffee and breakfast, people in a hurry on their way to work.
• 11:00 to 15:00: lunch, office crowds, a queue at the counter.
• 15:00 to 18:00: a quieter afternoon. Cakes, cold drinks, people with time to look around.
• 18:00 to closing: evening menu, or a wind-down with an offer to clear the day's pastries.

A shop's parts are different: a quiet morning for regulars, a lunchtime rush, after-work browsing. A gym's are built around class times. The method is the same: find the parts, then ask what someone in each part needs to see.

Weekdays and weekends

Weekends usually run on a different clock. Mornings start later, families come in, people stay longer. A café that sells grab-and-go coffee at 8am on a Tuesday might sell a sit-down brunch at 11am on a Saturday. The screens should know the difference.

Plan weekdays and weekends as separate days, even if most of the content is shared. Typical weekend changes are a later breakfast, a brunch offer, and longer afternoons for treats and family deals. If one weekday is special, like a market day or a late-opening evening, give it its own plan too.

Seasonal and one-off campaigns

On top of the daily rhythm sit the things that only happen for a while: an autumn drink, a summer menu, a holiday opening time, a one-day sale. These are where screens save the most work, and where they most often go wrong when nobody takes the old content down.

• Give every campaign a start and an end date before it goes up.
• Decide what it replaces. A seasonal drink might take the place of a regular one in the loop, rather than making the loop longer.
• Decide whether it shows all day, or only in the parts of the day it fits. An iced drink sells better in the afternoon than at 7am.
• Plan the next campaign before the current one ends, so the slot doesn't fall back to something stale.

In Jonza, campaigns sit on the same weekly calendar as everything else, with a priority. A one-day sale with a higher priority wins over the usual content on that day, and when the day is over the usual content comes back by itself.

How many items in a loop

Most screens show a loop: a few items shown one after another, round and round. The question is how long that loop should be. A good starting point is to ask how long people stand in front of the screen.

In a queue that takes two minutes, a loop of a minute or so means everyone sees everything at least once. In a window that people walk past in five seconds, a single strong message works better than a loop of ten. As a rough guide:

• Window or entrance screens: one to three items. People are walking.
• Menu boards above the counter: the menu itself stays put, with at most one or two offers taking turns beside it.
• Waiting areas and lobbies: a longer loop of five to eight items is fine, since people stay a while.

If the loop keeps growing, it's usually a sign that some items belong to a different part of the day. Move them there instead of adding them to the same loop.

How long each item shows

Long enough to read, short enough not to bore. Count how long it takes you to read an item aloud at a normal pace, then add a couple of seconds. A photo with a short headline might need six to eight seconds; a list of prices needs ten to fifteen. Videos run as long as they are, so trim them to the part that matters.