When a taxi stops in New York, people in a hurry look to its roof to see if it is empty. They see these days all sorts of ad messages, static and animated.
     It's the lucky ones who find the cab is empty, and some would say the advertiser inside the cab gets a pretty good ride as well.
     The audience for taxi interior advertising is much narrower and better defined than the masses of pedestrians and drivers targeted by the billboard-type ads on a cab’s surface.
      At the same time, the venues for delivering advertising messages inside taxis are broader. Drivers deliver promotional speeches and wear hats with advertisers’ logos while passengers are treated to audio, full-motion and static visual and print messages. They might leave the cab with brochures, magazines and product samples.
     To find out how to place your clients’ ads inside cabs, read on.
     This is one in a Media Life series on buying the new out-of-home venues. They appear weekly.
     Check out last week’s story on wrapping, topping and illuminating cab exteriors.

Fast Facts:

What: 
     Ads inside cabs.

Who: 
     Media companies small and large, from L.A. to D.C. are offering a variety of ads inside cabs. They include:

- Eller Taxi Media in Las Vegas
- TaxiVision, headquartered in Las Vegas
- Medallion Taxi Media, operating out of New York City and New Orleans
- The Ultimate Taxi, Aspen

How it works:
    Advertising opportunities inside taxis include:
- Video displays mounted above the windshield which have full-motion video and audio and are interactive. Some units incorporate pop-up screens. TaxiVision calls this CabTV.
     “There’s interactive programming so the passenger can navigate around a touch frame that’s much like a mouse,” says TaxiVision president Jerry Kutner. “When you don’t touch it, it plays a commercial. In Vegas [customers] pick hotels, restaurants, tourist spots and shopping.”
     Programming is stored on the unit. Ads generally run 30 seconds. Screen sizes range from 6.4 inches to 10.4 inches.
    Audio is available, including music. “For an HBO ad to promote a movie, the artist’s music is played in the cab,” says Charlie DiToro, COO for Eller Taxi Media.
- Backlit signage on headliners, 5 inches wide by 30 inches long.
- Receipts are used in the taxi industry for branding and couponing. “Clients love for us to give cab drivers receipt booklets with their logo on it and the cab industry loves to get them,” says Mary Pat Holt, COO for Medallion Media in New Orleans.
- Saddlebags display brochures from local hotels, restaurants, entertainment and service providers for passengers to peruse during the ride and take along when they reach their destination.
    One of the items found in cabs with Eller interiors is the second-largest magazine in Nevada. Put out by Eller, the publication “24/7,” has half and full-page ads for hotels, shows, local services and other tourist-oriented businesses. Every month 400,000 are distributed.
- Laptop computers, complete with ads, have been used as an advertising medium in taxis. Yahoo put them in Eller taxis in San Francisco as a promotion.
    Ultimate Taxi in Aspen sells banner ads that appear on their web site, with access inside the taxi. Daily visitors range up to 5,000 while monthly figures are 40,000 to 60,000.
- Drivers can read from an advertiser’s script, says Eller’s DiToro.
- Drivers can also wear a baseball cap with the advertiser’s logo on the back, facing the passengers.
- Sampling, or distribution of consumable samples, is available through Eller and The Ultimate Taxi.
    Creative for video screens is generally ads generated for television. “But they can be customized,” Kutner says.
    Interior creative can be more detailed than exterior, DiToro says. “It’s almost like reading a newspaper. The consumer is real close to it so it can be heavily text driven.”
    Local and regional campaigns are popular for cab interiors, especially in tourist markets.
    Exclusivity is available in some markets.
    Second-hand media coverage of taxi advertising has increased over the past months with the launch of digital screens both inside and outside cabs.
    The Ultimate Taxi in Aspen has been covered by print and broadcast media including Dateline NBC, the Learning Channel and Ripley’s Believe It or Not. “Recently we’ve been in Newsweek and Fast Company,” says owner Jon Barnes.

Markets:
    TaxiVision is currently in Las Vegas and expanding into other markets.
     Eller Taxi Media is in New York City, San Francisco, Boston, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Miami, Washington D.C., Detroit, Orlando, Oakland, San José and Palo Alto.
     Medallion Taxi Media is in New York City, Los Angeles, Boston, San Francisco, New Orleans, San Diego, Philadelphia, Boston, Atlanta, Atlantic City, Austin, Baltimore, Buffalo, Biloxi, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Colorado Springs, Columbus, Dallas, Denver, Hartford, Houston, Indianapolis, Memphis, Miami, Minneapolis, Newark, Phoenix, Pittsburgh, Salt Lake City, San Antonio, Toledo, Kansas City, Missouri, Washington D.C. and Clearwater, Jacksonville and Pensacola, Florida.
     The Ultimate Taxi is in Aspen, Colorado.

Numbers:
     The average cab ride is 12 to 18 minutes.
     Taxis are generally in use 22 hours a day.
     Cost Per Thousand statistics are used to measure and compare market exposure.

Research:
     Taxicabs are present in every major U.S. market with a total of 300,000 vehicles. New York City is considered the taxi capital with 12,000 taxis. Nationally, about 5 percent of cabs carry advertising, while in New York the figure is slightly less than 30 percent (source: TaxiVision).
     A study of CabTV use conducted February 15–24, 2001 in Las Vegas found that the longer passengers remained in the taxi, the more likely they would be to engage the interactive buttons and commercials. Passengers taking rides of less than five minutes were more likely to view the continuous loop commercials uninterrupted (source: University of Nevada study for Eller Taxi Media).
     While numbers vary, it’s clear that cab interiors get significantly less exposure than exterior ads. On the other hand, the audience is captive for the length of the cab ride.
     Medallion Taxi Media has commissioned studies of impressions and effectiveness in their major markets. Last week, when Media Life covered advertising on taxi exteriors, we took a look at Medallion’s Los Angeles study. This week we peek at Boston.
     It takes one minute for a cab to travel one mile on a roadway and one minute to travel the length of one city block, including time spent at traffic lights (source: research conducted by Information Matters, a division of Wegmann Information Enterprises in New Orleans).
     In the Boston market, one segment of taxi business is round trips to and from Logan International Airport. A typical taxi in this vicinity makes three round trips a day. The number of passengers wasn’t tracked.
     Local runs between the Harvard/MIT university area and central Boston average about 24 trips per taxi on a 10 to 12 hour shift.
     Which product categories do well?
     Entertainment, lodging, restaurants, media, financial, airlines, fashion, electronics and technology.
     Movie releases and Broadway shows often run campaigns that include advertising both on the interior and exterior of taxis. “There can be a lot of tie-in,” says Eller’s DiToro. “You can put a poster on top and then use an illuminated ad inside and dispense a coupon as a receipt.”
     “We know that 93 percent of travelers already know where they’re going to stay, but don’t know what they’re going to do for entertainment,” Kutner says.
     Taxis in Las Vegas will carry more than 48 million passengers in 2001 with the average ride lasting more than 12  minutes. Of those visitors, 89 percent will decide what shows to see after they arrive while 66 percent will decide where to gamble, 96 percent will shop outside their hotel and 95 percent will dine at restaurants outside their hotel. Average stays in Las Vegas are 5.2 days and 4.1 nights and the average number of visits in the past five years is 10.3 (source: Study conducted at the University of Nevada for Eller Taxi Media).

Demographics:
     Las Vegas is a taxi hub. A recent study of taxi passengers found that the average age of passengers is 52.2 and that 77 percent have a household income of $40,000 or more (source: Eller Taxi Media).
     “Interiors are a high-end demographic,” DiToro says. “They can afford a fifty dollar cab ride.”

Making the buy:
Eller Taxi Media -
    Lead time is typically seven to 10 days, but campaigns have gone up in as little as 24 hours.
    Contract lengths are flexible. “Basically what the client’s campaign needs to be,” says DiToro. Three- to 10-day runs for conventions in Orlando, San Francisco and Las Vegas are common.
    Factors that affect pricing are markets, length and quantity of buy and type of advertisement. Packaging is the standard. “Pricing varies dramatically by city and by what the client’s buying,” DiToro says.
    Availability and pricing information for each Eller market is available on their web site under Inventory. Each market lists what types of taxi advertising are available. For example, in Boston interiors, receipts and baseball caps are all available as well as exterior ads.

TaxiVision –
    Taxi Vision has partnered with Eller Media in the Las Vegas market only.
    Lead time depends on availability, but is generally two weeks.
    Contracts run 13 weeks.
    Interior ads are sold at cost per thousand.

Medallion Media –
    Medallion offers brochure saddlebags and receipts/coupons for taxi interiors.
    Lead time varies and contracts range from one month to one year.
    Factors that affect pricing include number of cabs and length of contract.

The Ultimate Taxi –
    The Aspen-based taxi has ads and sponsorships for sale.
    On-site web ads, logos inside the cab and on the border of souvenir photographs, and sampling are available. The cab is also available to be part of a display or to provide promotional rides at events like trade shows. “Someone with ideas in marketing could have a ball with the cab,” Barnes says.

What’s unique:
     The Ultimate Taxi in Aspen is a one-of-a-kind venue that owner Jon Barnes promotes as “The only recording studio, theater, nightclub, planetarium, toy store, internet connected taxicab in the world.” It’s a tourist attraction in itself with a passenger list that includes Ringo Starr, Bob Dole, Michael Douglas, Jimmy Buffett, Denise Rich and dozens of other celebrities.

Who’s already inside taxis?
    Delta Airlines, Procter and Gamble, Old Navy, MGM Studios, Home Box Office, Fox Television, CNN, Helmut Lang and Bank of America.

Web site info:

Taxi Vision at www.taxiviz.com
The Ultimate Taxi at www.ultimatetaxi.com
Eller Taxi Media at www.taxitops.com
Medallion Media at www.medallionfinancial.com

April 23, 2001 © 2001 Media Life

-Kathy Prentice writes about out-of-home advertising  for Media Life, penning her stories from the resort town of Traverse City, in the upper reaches of Michigan.

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