Bus Shelters Become Latest Venue for Targeted Ad Sales

MEDIA & TECHNOLOGY

By CHRISTOPHER KEOUGH

Staff Reporter

The bus stop long has been inundated with advertising of all kinds so why not add commercials on a video screen to the mix?

Gardena-based Antex Electronics Corp. has developed a technology to send advertising to bus stop shelters via high-speed Internet connection, and it’s about to launch a pilot test of the technology in West Covina.

Under the program, ads would be sent to a full-motion video monitor built into custom bus shelters. The units would be interactive, allowing users to input data that would find its way into more targeted advertising.

The prospect of tapping a captive audience with highly targeted ads has the folks who sell advertising space champing at the bit.

Clear Channel Outdoor, a division of media giant Clear Channel Communications Inc., is negotiating with Antex for potential collaboration.

Unlike static billboards, said Bill Hooper, executive vice president of real estate and public affairs at Clear Channel Outdoor, “McDonald’s could advertise McMuffins in the morning and Big Macs in the afternoon.”

That means more advertising options and more revenues.

“We’re constantly in pursuit of technologies that would get us there,” he said. “If the day could come where we could offer our advertisers the ability to change content remotely, that would be a huge breakthrough in our medium.”

Antex provides hardware and software through a VCR-sized product called Media Director that sells for $1,700 although they offered a discount to Clear Channel in exchange for a cut of advertising revenues.

“They thought about it for minute and said, ‘Uh, no,'” said Dave Antrim, Antex’s director of sales. “There’s a lot of money to be made if they can fill up the clock. They can sell the clock, too, and charge higher fees to put in your advertisements at peak times.”

Devoted to product

Whether it gets a cut of the ad pie or not, Antex is banking heavily on Media Director.

A privately held company that makes PC soundcards and satellite receivers, Antex had 2001 revenues of $8 million. Revenues were projected to jump to $10 million in 2002 and move higher in the following years, with Media Director accounting for 50 percent of revenues within two or three years.

The prototype going up in West Covina was built by Hawthorne-based LNI Custom Manufacturing Inc.

The “Lexus of bus shelters,” as LNI Executive Account Manager Craig Watterson calls it, has a steel enclosure for the Media Director box and a second steel enclosure for a video monitor of some sort, whether LCD or liquid plasma, with a rugged Plexiglas covering.

Antex is selling Media Director to LNI, which then builds it into the bus shelter. LNI, after getting approval from the municipality to erect the shelter, makes money by selling shelters to companies that in turn sell the ad space. The advertising is expected to be far more valuable than at static shelters, which reach an anonymous drive-by audience.

Antrim said the companies plan to put as many as 100 shelters, which could mean as $170,000 for Antex.

Among the obstacles: limits to the availability of high-speed Internet connections in some neighborhoods and the potential for vandalism. Antrim said wireless transmitters could replace landline Internet connections, or an upgraded CD-ROM could be installed.

Protecting against vandalism and other crimes is another headache. Antex has proposed using Web cams that would not only act as a deterrent to crime, but provide demographic information on who happens to be waiting at the bus shelters. This, in turn, could allow for more targeted advertising.

Target audience changes

Up until now, bus shelter advertisements have been directed at drive-by traffic. Media director changes the parameters to direct advertisements at users of public transportation.

Video can be tailored to a particular neighborhood, perhaps pitching products and services of the businesses along the same street as the shelter, or by more traditional national advertisers targeting specific demographics.

Watterson said touch screens and interactive programming add another dimension. He envisions riders paying their fares at the shelters electronically and transit authorities using global positioning system satellite feeds to alert riders of a bus’s whereabouts.