CHICAGO A technology-laced venture involving Morton's Restaurant Group Inc. and an advertising ally is betting that targeted, high-definition TV messages, combined with upscale food and service, will spur interest in video conferencing and boost private party sales.
The business-to-business, virtual-meeting service is being pitched to corporate honchos by Chicago-based Morton's — parent of the 74-unit Morton's, The Steakhouse chain — and its partner in the enterprise, Velocity Broadcasting. Velocity is a subsidiary of Elias-Savion Advertising Inc. of Pittsburgh, Morton's long-time advertising agency, which claims to be the nation's premier private broadcasting network.
Atotal of 71 Morton's restaurants have so-called Velocity HD Suites housed within their branded "Boardroom" private dining areas. Each seats between 10 and 100 invited guests for big screen, high-definition TV broadcasts carried over a satellite network, accompanied by the Morton’s food-beverage-and-service experience.
The equipment package of each suite consists of a 9-foot drop-down screen; a digital 16:9 aspect-ratio high-definition projection system; a satellite receiver certified for the Velocity-HD, high-definition format; and 7.2 surround-sound audio technology powering 11 high-fidelity speakers. Morton's Boardrooms have a décor of dark mahogany woods, parquet floors and oriental rugs.
Akey selling point of the suites, according to the partners, is that they give users the ability to transmit live business information around the country at a fraction of the cost, time and bother of actual travel and face-to-face presentations. The partners said key users of the suites thus far have been pharmaceutical, financial, insurance and technology companies.
"Maybe they used to do a road show in 40 cities," Roger Drake, Morton's vice president of communications and public relations, said of a company that might use the new service. "Now they can get it all done in one night by broadcasting to Morton's nationwide."
Morton's private dining business already amounts to 19 percent of company revenues, or $58 million annually, according to Drake. However, that segment of business has only a 50-percent utilization rate, meaning that the rooms are dark half the time. "We're very focused on growing the Boardroom private-dining business," he said. "It's one of our key growth initiatives."
Private dining at Morton's has a higher average check than à la carte dining, $103 per person compared with $88 per person, officials of the chain indicated. Boardroom events can be planned with either the à la carte menu or custom menus.
The audio-video equipment package that Morton's purchased for the Velocity partnership is easy for nontechnical people to operate, Drake said. For Velocity events, the equipment is remotely controlled from Velocity's studios in Pittsburgh. For non-Velocity events, Morton's staff runs the equipment manually using a password-protected controller in the Boardroom.
One of the advantages of private broadcasting is that high-level executives often find it more appealing than alternative methods for taking in a presentation, according to Philip Elias, president of Elias-Savion and chief executive and executive producer of Velocity Broadcasting. "At that C-suite level, they're not going to a trade show," he said.
According to Elias, one corporate client, the Pittsburgh-based technology company CombineNet, sourced $2.5 million in sales immediately following its first Velocity Broadcasting event.
In another example, a pharmaceutical company staged a Morton's Velocity broadcast to introduce a new drug to 1,200 physicians in key markets. The production featured the clinicians that actually developed the drug. "The lead clinicians are not going to fly around the country for something like this," said Elias. "This rollout otherwise could have taken 12-18 months instead of overnight."
The companies that book Velocity events pay Morton's only for food and beverage. There is no charge for booking the Boardroom or using the audio-video equipment. However, Velocity charges for production time and broadcast services.
While the Velocity HD Suites are intended to be moneymakers, they also may be used for internal communications, Drake noted.
Velocity Broadcasting events are produced in the studios of WQED Multimedia Center, another Elias-Savion partner, in Pittsburgh. Velocity on-air talent, drawn from local broadcasters, delivers content created by the host company. The average base package for a broadcast is $42,000, including cameras and studio sets. To distribute programming, Velocity relies on the encrypted satellite broadcasting capabilities of EchoStar Fixed Satellite Services Corp., based in Englewood, Colo.
"We broadcast at 1080i HD, like CBS and Discovery HD," Elias said.
Equipping a Velocity HD Suite costs about $35,000-$40,000, according to the Velocity Broadcasting executive. Add to that, he said, the cost of installing satellite equipment, which could range from $4,000 to $5,000 in a simple install to as much as $28,000 if a high-rise building is involved.
Beyond business presentations, Velocity can deliver live, private entertainment, like the 75-minute Wynton Marsalis jazz concert that it broadcast in HD and 7.2 surround-sound to corporate clients at Morton's.
"Most of the usage is business-to-business communication," said Elias. "But for entertaining like that, it's cheaper than taking everyone out for a round of golf, and it really makes an impact."
