[tbeer22]

I live in a wealthy tourist town in California with about 150,000 people. None of the cabs in town sell advertising space on their vehicle. I was thinking of starting a company that could sell advertising space on these cabs for small and local businesses. Does anyone have any experience or input on the subject, that could help get me pointed in the right Direction??!?

thanks.

[successcoach]

What a great idea! I would possibly be interested in doing an ad, if you start such a thing but sorry I have no idea what it would take to start such a venture.

[jdoc]

It's a pretty decent business, there's a company in my town that just starting doing advertisements on top of cabs.

The first place to start is by talking to the cabbies themselves. Figure out if cabbies are independent contractors (with or without their own cars) or employees. If they're independent, ask them if they need permission from the company they operate with to have something on their cabs. If you're lucky, they won't and you won't need to cut the cab companies in, just the drivers themselves.

Target the tourism businesses (hotels, restaurants, etc.) and see how much they're willing to pay per day per cab. It will depend on perceived eyeballs that the cab passes everyday. Obviously rates are higher in more dense locations.

Lastly, find someone who can purchase the actual signage and setup from. There are several cab companies using these already (see http://loutrans.com/Ads.html for an example), call one of them up and find out who makes the actual mounts.

[tbeer22]

How do you think I could set a price for the advertising space??? It wouldn't be comparable to metropolitan cities like LA, New York, or Chicago. Any suggestions on how much to charge small business and companies to advertise on cabs and hand out brochures that will get so-so exposure?

[archiebolo]

What you are looking at is really a pretty complicated operation..

First of all.. California is a really big and commercialized city.. and there must be a reason why there are no ads on the cabs.. better look into that.. (ad on cabs is not really a new idea).

Secondly.. you dont own these cabs.. so you would have to work up something with these cab companies / cab drivers.. and if some how you got a deal... you have to some how secure the deal or else giant rich advertising firm will take it over. i'd follow what jdoc said.

To set a price for cab ads is the same as setting a price for any other form of advertisment.. you have to look at how much an ad is going to be exposed.. to how many people will it be exposed in one hour/ day/ month/ year.. how effective it would be.. and to what target market will it target the most..
(there are much more facters .. these are just some off the top of my head)
you have to be careful while doing this reasearch and must give it much care.. because one mistake will = un-happy custemers.

more over.. how many people in California really look at brochures handed out in a cab? better look into that as well...

This operation is more then just set a price and find customers but best of luck do lots of research before you start.

[tbeer22]

I talked to the largest cab company in town. They are interested and had never been approached by someone with the idea. I figure if I can get them the rest will follow. But yes, I'll have to figure out what price would be fair to them, but make the whole operation worth my time.. CASH FLOW ANAYLSIS

[nado]

Originally Posted by tbeer22

I talked to the largest cab company in town. They are interested and had never been approached by someone with the idea. I figure if I can get them the rest will follow. But yes, I'll have to figure out what price would be fair to them, but make the whole operation worth my time.. CASH FLOW ANAYLSIS

Good work!

I guess you could basically just setup a meeting and negotiate a price with them... which will also include working out their cut of the advertising money etc.

[akula]

Originally Posted by tbeer22

I live in a wealthy tourist town in California with about 150,000 people. None of the cabs in town sell advertising space on their vehicle. I was thinking of starting a company that could sell advertising space on these cabs for small and local businesses. Does anyone have any experience or input on the subject, that could help get me pointed in the right Direction??!?

thanks.

you need to refine your pitch to include more intellectual property.

this is what you do:

geolocation ad technology inside and outside taxis.

what you want is to sit the passenger in the cab, and when they are driving past Broadway - show them an ad (on a touch screen) for the latest play now showing in theaters. (or, the latest 2 for 1 pizza deal, if they are driving past the corner pizza joint, or the latest deal on a new Nissan, if the cab is driving past a dealership).

likewise, if the ads are outside the taxi salon, the ad displayed should change based on the location of the cab - to make the ad more relevant to the drivers and pedestrians who view it.

please tattoo this on your arm:

advertising today is not about advertising. it's about delivering the relevant message, to the relevant audience at the relevant time. if you can figure this problem out, and solve it so I don't have to stare at pitches for Tampax 5 times a day (i.e. irrelevant advertising) - the future is yours for the taking.

take heed to this advice:

if you take the time to develop intellectual property, it will be easier for you to build a more valuable company.

somebody who'll plaster my logo on some cab - is not worth much. somebody who'll deliver my ad - in a range of media (text, image, audio, video) - to an audience in my immediate location - and give me a report, and statistics, on how the audience interacted with my advertising: that's valuable.

that's an ROI driven advertising solution, cheaper and more effective than other advertising products.

[jdoc]

Pricing is indeed the trickiest part of this venture. It comes down to perceived eyeballs as others have mentioned. You need to have a price which is competitive with other offerings on a per person/exposure basis. In Canada, there's a thing called the Canadian Advertising Media Rate Guide, and it's published monthly to give this information (eg. the price of advertising on a bus in Edmonton for 2 weeks, the price of an outside billboard on a popular street, etc.). Look for something similar in the U.S. to guide you.

While I agree with Akula that long term you should be thinking of adding cool technology in-cab (which probably wouldn't even be intellectual property really, since there are several companies in the world that are producing such technologies already) to add value, I don't think it's the way to start. The world is not uniform, so even if your value proposition in a larger center where people are already doing more advanced forms of cab advertising would be rather poor, if there's nothing like it in your area then it doesn't matter. Go with the low-cost way first, and then see what your customers are interested in. You'll be surprised at how much money is thrown at traditional advertising still versus slick 'targeted advertising'. Grab the opportunity now, and innovate as you build up to retain your customers. If you run into resistance from your potential customers ("Why would I waste money on that when I can..."), then you'll know you need to advance your initial offering to get them in the first place.