By: Karl Greenberg Internet News Coming To Gas Station Near You
(Adweek IQ) Is the guy at the gas pump in front of you watching the gauge, or something else? If it's a Phillips 66 gas station and convenience store, he might be glued to a glowing video screen.
On Wednesday, Phillips Petroleum Co., the Bartlesville, Okla.-based refiner, inked a deal designed to deliver full-motion news and advertisements to gas pumps. BillBoard Video, a Dallas based operator of Internet public kiosks, plans to install display monitors in gas pumps and flow news and ads through its wireless network.
Phillips operates 266 retail locations in Colorado, Utah, Missouri, Kansas, North Carolina, Oklahoma, New Mexico and Arizona. BillBoard Video expects 1,000 consumers a day to see ads at each location.
Billboard Video says its proprietary Mediaware technology allows it to deliver data over the Internet directly to the pump. Ads are wrapped around CNN headline news and sports.
"We are able to direct traffic into our stores, resulting in increased revenue, while providing a source of information to our customers," Phil Sontag, Phillips retail specialist, said, citing the advantage of delivering ads and promotional offers close to the point of purchase.
BillBoard Video CEO William Hall said testing is underway at five Phillips locations and he expects several hundred units to be installed by year's end. The company has similar agreements with The Pantry, an East Coast-based gasoline retailer, and FFP of Dallas. Altogether, 6,000 units are under contract and 10,000 are pending, he said.
BillBoard pays stations a fixed lease price, Hall said, "But we contract and sell all ads."
"We'd show a cola ad and garner increases of 40% for soda sales in the store," Hall said, adding that he expects to expand beyond convenience stores.
Properly placed, out-of-home video ads give advertisers a captive audience, Hall said. He cited research showing that 75% of U.S. drivers gas up 1.5 times a week and spend an average six minutes at the pump.
By the end of next year he expects to offer 60 million captive viewers per month - 25% of the U.S. population.
Do drivers linger to read and create traffic jams at the pump?
"The only complaint we've heard is from one franchisee in Florida, who said that if the customers were finished in five minutes they were staying an extra minute to watch the whole loop," Hall said.
Related story:
CAPTIVATE NETWORKS PUTS CONTENT IN ELEVATORS (04/12/00)
Copyright 2000, Editor & Publisher.
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