Fare play to on-board taxi ads

ACCORDING to urban legend, the only thing you ever hear when you get into a taxi is a view of the world according to the driver.

But one Edinburgh-based firm is aiming to change all that. In years to come, taxi users in the Capital and beyond could listen to chart hits, sports commentary or breaking news.

In the meantime, Mark Greenhalgh, the managing director of Cabtivate, a company specialising in on-board advertising for taxis, describes the current capability of its system as a "call to action".

The company has just completed a one-year trial of its technology in 30 of Edinburgh’s black taxis and has already been given the green light for similar trials in Glasgow and Birmingham.

Currently, a screen fitted behind the driver’s seat plays a six-minute advertising loop - the average length of an Edinburgh taxi journey - using a mix of still images and short TV-style commercials to passengers.

From next February, cab passengers in Edinburgh will see a mix of ads and other regional content, including news, sport and local events.

And ex-cabbie Mr Greenhalgh - who together with business partner Jim Neilson first started working on the Cabtivate concept in 2001 - has grand ambitions for the business.

Put simply, it’s aim is to become synonymous with providing local ad and content information on a national - and international - basis. And that expansion will be helped as technology develops and its costs fall.

Mr Greenhalgh says: "I can see this type of system in every purpose-built taxi in the UK eventually." And Europe? "I certainly think we’ll have a strong presence within ten years. We’ve already got a guy in Paris wanting to be an agent."

The optimism is not misplaced, at least not when you consider the potential market of tens of thousands of taxis that ply for trade on the streets of Europe every day. And there are few taxi owners who would turn down the chance of making some extra cash, helping to offset their running costs, for little more than turning on an on-board TV at the start of their shift.

Over four years, a taxi owner can rake in more than £10,000 just for carrying the system. That can rise to about £15,000 if the vehicle carries external Cabtivate advertising as well, Mr Greenhalgh explains. Put in perspective, that would mean a cab owner could replace a vehicle every four years and effectively get it for half its near-£30,000 cost.

"There’s about 20 more drivers already signed up and about 77 more saying they’re interested in signing up," says Mr Greenhalgh, emphasising the buzz the system has created among the city’s cabbie community.

As the standard forms of media advertising - press, TV and radio - becomes more crowded in a rapidly developing digital age, Mr Greenhalgh sees the "out-of-home" ad market as one that has great potential.

"New media have dealt a blow to things like TV advertising," he says.

That means there is now a gamut of media delivery channels competing for a slice of finite company ad budgets. And companies have to seek out increasingly innovative, yet cost-effective ways to catch the consumer’s attention.

"We’re competing for part of the content providers’ budgets," Mr Greenhalgh states.

"But I believe we have an advantage by having a market that is on the move but at the same time captive.

"That’s a market that’s largely untapped by other media and it’s one that’s not really distracted by what’s going on outside [the taxi]."

But while competing, he also sees Cabtivate as an ideal aid for cross-promoting other media providers, possibly by running ads showing the front pages of newspapers or a clip of a TV programme showing later that day.

"It’s a part of the media mix - passing the consumer along the line," he offers.

Simple information screens already exist in taxis operating in places like Singapore and the United States, but they are largely screens offering nothing more than touch-screen, drop-down menus with limited content.

Taken to its fullest development - at least in terms of present technologies - the Cabtivate system could become fully interactive, enabling taxi passengers to pay their bills, surf the internet and download barcodes to their mobile phones to make bookings or secure savings or special offers from Cabtivate advertisers. It’s a real queuebuster as well, as the barcode will effectively be a ticket," explains Mr Greenhalgh.

And because of its controllability, the system could even deliver tailored advertiser messages as the cab closes in on certain locations - for example, just a few hundred yards from a McDonald’s takeaway.

The former cabbie says: "As technology changes, we will be able to put live TV into cabs. The system has been designed to be controlled from a central point.

"That means we can change the content shown in any cab anywhere in the world using satellite technology."

Mr Greenhalgh says Cabtivate is in talks with a major broadcaster for news content supply and is hopeful that a deal can be secured within the next few weeks.

The business expects to generate turnover of £1.2 million in this its first full year, with its screens in a total of at least 710 cabs.

Year two is seen returning £3.8m with year three coming in about £7.8m, by which time it is expected more than 2000 taxis will have the system installed. Mr Greenhalgh says: "That’s a very conservative estimate as it’s only based on five major cities. But we expect by year two to have brought in other areas."

Ideally, Cabtivate would like to have its screens fitted as standard to every purpose-built black cab made in the country. But Mr Greenhalgh says the current aim is to establish a presence in 25 per cent of the taxi fleet in each location where it operates. In Edinburgh, that means 350 cabs and 380 in Glasgow.

Cabtivate has secured permission for a launch in Birmingham, and is seeking the go-ahead in London and Manchester. "This will allow us to sell as a national media," Mr Greenhalgh explains.

He points out Cabtivate’s business plan does not yet take in mainland Europe, although there is already a contact in Paris eager to facilitate the roll-out of Cabtivate’s system in the French capital.

Mr Greenhalgh says: "The problem there is that the system has been designed for the black-cab market and there’s not that many of them there yet.

"But it can be tailored to suit other forms of public transport - even buses. Our plan is to build the critical mass in the first year in the UK," explains Mr Greenhalgh.

After that, Cabtivate will aim to launch its on-board system into taxis in towns and cities such as Dundee, Liverpool, Sheffield, Newcastle, Doncaster and Coventry.

"Areas where there are sizeable fleets but that wouldn’t necessarily be a first call on the national media’s map," he says.

Within ten years, Mr Greenhalgh sees Cabtivate becoming a major player in the global ad and content delivery market. "I’d expect the cost of the units to fall by maybe as much as 70 per cent as the general cost of technology falls," he says.

Now, what would your friendly cabbie have to say about that?

Top-ranking idea begins to take off

CABTIVATE was an idea that took former Edinburgh taxi driver Mark Greenhalgh and his business partner Jim Neilson two and a half years and almost £400,000 to bring to fruition.

At the time, Mr Greenhalgh was involved (still is) with Edinburgh-based Independent Taxi Services which specialised in a range of services to the taxi trade, including insurance, financing and external advertising.

In 1996, ITS was asked by Scot FM radio station - which became Real Radio - if the company could make an audio sample to promote the station in the city’s taxis.

"We created the audio system and completed everything," explains Mr Greenhalgh.

"But we then learned that the company’s finance director had left the firm and that was the whole thing dead."

Mr Greenhalgh says it was about four years after that the idea to put a screen in taxis came about. But technology costs were high and the idea remained just an idea until prices started to tumble to make the proposition viable.

Following a successful pilot in Edinburgh, two weeks ago Cabtivate secured permission from Glasgow City Council’s licensing department to trial the screens there.

"We’ve also been speaking to the film school in Glasgow with a view to trailing new movies from some of Scotland’s brightest young film-makers," notes Mr Greenhalgh.

"We have put a huge effort into finding exactly the right hardware and developing the right software over the past two years. On-the-road trials over the past year have ironed out any teething problems."