Article dispensing – With discharge assistant – Follower
Patent
1993-08-19
1994-12-06
Gastineau, Cheryl L.
Article dispensing
With discharge assistant
Follower
221155, 221124, 221130, 221131, 221 17, B65H 108
Patent
active
053702654
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a display device in the form of a display board or stand intended primarily for advertising purposes and to a card dispenser for use as a module in such a display device.
DESCRIPTION OF THE PRIOR ART
It has been customary for some time for newsagents, supermarkets and do-it-yourself (DIY) stores to provide facilities whereby private customers and local businesses can advertise their services. In the simplest form, the shopkeeper provides a notice board and advertisers pay for their advertisement cards to be displayed on the board for an appropriate period of time. This method of advertising requires that the potential customer should take down details of the advertised goods or services in which they are interested. During a shopping expedition, when the potential customer is encumbered by bags and children, this is not always practical. Therefore, it is clearly desirable to provide some facility for the dispensing of leaflets or cards which the potential customer can take away. Such displays of leaflets and the like require frequent replenishing if customers are not to be disappointed. Moreover, if such displays are left in unattended locations, there is a risk that the entire stock of cards or leaflets will be removed by one person and scattered in the vicinity, resulting in loss of the advertising service and damage to the environment. This makes this type of display advertising unacceptable to advertisers and the shopkeepers who provide the location alike.
There are therefore two primary technical problems to be solved if a commercially attractive display board advertising service is to be promoted at retail locations, such as supermarkets and DIY stores, where there is a continuous flow of potential local consumers, which advertisers wish to target.
The first of these problems is to permit some permanent record of the advertised goods or services to be taken away by the potential customer. This allows the advertising to be more effective and also provides feedback to the advertiser as to the interest in his product.
The second problem is to prevent vandalism so that the feedback effect is preserved, the local environment does not become littered and the advertising effect of the stock of leaflets or cards is maximized.
In solving these problems, a number of subsidiary technical problems arise as will be apparent from the following description.
Various attempts have been made to solve the technical problems set out above. For example, WO-A-8904129 (Glenmead Pty Limited) shows a display device to which a number of card dispensers are fixed. These card dispensers allow a business card to be extracted by a potential customer from a horizontal stack stored in the dispensing apparatus. The arrangement described suffers from a number of problems. In particular, the stock of cards available for dispensing is limited by the space available for each dispenser on the board. Further, it is necessary to disassemble the entire board in order to replenish one dispenser. Thirdly, the mechanical arrangement by means of which the stack of cards is urged upwardly is prone to failure. Fourthly, with this type of display board, it is not immediately apparent to a potential customer that he is able to abstract a card of the type displayed to take away. A further disadvantage of the display board described in this piece of prior art is that it presents a complex and untidy shape to the potential customer giving rise to problems of keeping the board clean and aesthetically pleasing. Such a shape presents opportunities for the vandal to break off parts of the display and generally deface it.
In order to solve the problems outlined, the present invention provides a display device which may be assembled from modules including dispensing devices as more specifically defined in the appended claims.
In this specification the term `card` is used to refer to any laminar member suitable for dispensing one at a time. A `card` may be a business card or voucher or even be a fol
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Drake Christopher J. T.
Hodges Kevin N.
Mackay Roy A.
Parkinson Colin D.
Gastineau Cheryl L.
Reichard Dean A.
Retail Holdings Limited
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