Someone’s Got Your Undivided Attention…
London taxi drivers, I read, are now being paid to promote the attractions of a holiday in Thailand as we are ferried around the capital. A good reason to buy an iPod, I would think. But this does highlight one contemporary fact of media life. There aren’t too many places where an advertiser can count upon your personal immobility. They used to trap you on the sofa, watching ITV. Next they figured that they could get you while you sat at your PC. These days they want to catch your attention via your mobile.
But none of these are quite satisfactory. You might not look at the screen. You might simply click away to something more interesting. You might actually find these intrusions more of an irritant than anything else. But there is one thing that we do 2.7 billion times each year that involves us standing still and looking intently at a screen. This happens when we withdraw money from a cash-point. So what better chance to capture our undivided attention than during those few seconds while we are waiting for our cash to appear?
This is the opportunity spotted back in 2001 by the now 38 year old Ana Stewart. Last month evidence of the attraction of ATM-based advertising came in the form of an announcement from Ana’s AIM-quoted company i-design plc (IDG). It was an announcement that gave this Fife-based company particular pleasure because it concerned a deal with The Royal Bank of Scotland. i-design is to install software that will enable RBS to run advertisements over its ATMs. And, through its own advertising agency, i-design will have exclusive rights to sell third party advertising on the 2,500 terminals of RBS that are located in branches of Tesco.
The ATM advertising channel has some clear attractions. Unless you are peering over your shoulder for an approaching mugger the screen will have your attention. The message must be short and sharp, and there is some evidence that it is recalled. By detecting your sex from the chip in your bank card the screen can show an appropriate ad - Nivea has already taken advantage of this gender screening. The buttons on either side of the screen offer the chance of some interactivity. And the paper receipt can have a confirmation of the advertisement, perhaps including a coupon.
Cash in hand
Add these attractions to the fact that the viewer demonstrably has a bank account and some cash, and that opportunities to spend this cash are probably nearby and you have a promising scenario for advertisers. Here is an example. Orange has used ATMs to advertise special deals. The viewer sees the promotion on the screen. His or her printed receipt has a bar-coded voucher at its foot. And what do you know? There is an Orange shop just around the corner! The customer has cash, a special offer voucher and the place to redeem it – result, business for Orange.
i-design offers a complete package of software, which can be integrated into existing IT systems and run on any type of ATM. It can also both design advertisements to suit the small ATM screen and sell the space either directly to advertisers or else to third party buyers of outdoor sites. Last year just over half of i-design’s £1m revenues came from media sales, with the balance split between production services and software sales.
i-design appears to be unique in offering the complete range of required services and like many successful businesses it is creating a new stream of revenue where none previously existed for the ATM owners, who need do little except permit them to be used. i-design’s first major customer was the Nationwide Building Society, which signed a renewed and larger contract last year. HSBC followed, and in September the Alliance & Leicester decided to install i-design’s software into its 2,200 ATMs and gave it an exclusive five year media sales deal.
The deal with Royal Bank of Scotland means that i-design has now sold software licenses covering 14,800 of the total 60,000 ATMs in this country. However its real market share is higher than this, because 27,000 of these ATMs are owned by independents that charge for each cash withdrawal, and consequently process only 5% of total withdrawals. And, of the ATMs owned by banks and building societies, the most attractive to advertisers are those situated in for instance shopping malls airports rather than at the banks themselves. But already this base of business in the UK is giving i-design the chance to build a nice stream of recurring income, and it has made its first foray overseas by appointing software reseller Mellon to market the product in Greece. i-design is yet to make a profit but is forecast to do so in the year to September 2009, when broker Edison forecasts a pre-tax figure of £0.5m on revenue of £7.2m for earnings per share of 3.5p. Having floated at a price of 67p last July the share price is now 55p, valuing i-design at £7.8m.
Regards,
Tom Bulford
for The Penny Sleuth
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