People normally don't pay much attention to advertisements in print media and generally avoid TV ads by changing channels, making a cup of coffee or taking a toilet break until the ad is over but there are some exceptions, according to local taxi advertising operator Futurelook.

In pilot trials of its iCab taxi advertising service in April, one of its clients which advertised its car rental, car service centre and handyman's services was so happy that it extended its campaign for a further four months.

“This client received between 30 and 40 enquires per month, with between 50% to 60% conversion rate compared to one or two calls per month when it advertised in the newspapers,” said Futurelook director, Valens Datuk Dr. Subra.

Another client, the Islamic International School in Subang Jaya received between five and six enquiries per day for the RM1,500 it spent per month on iCab advertising, compared to less than five calls in response to an ad costing RM8,000 per insertion in a newspaper.

Futurelook officially launched iCab in 100 taxis in early August and at the time, had four clients – namely MBF Card, Palm Gardens Resort, Pusat Zakat Selangor and Avis International Car Rental, though Futurelook also targets clients such as telephone companies, banks, hotels, insurance companies, food & beverage outlets, entertainment spots, government and others which typically address consumers.

iCab consists of iCab Digital, a digital media player with a 7 inch LCD display mounted in the back of the headrest of the taxi's front passenger seat or in front of the passenger sitting on the left side of its back seat. where studies found 95% of passengers normally sit.

The media player plays a video and slide advertisements with voice-enabled full multimedia which repeats every 10 minutes, 60% of which are advertisements interspersed with four minutes of movie trailers and important announcements on health issues such as the H1N1 virus, cancer and other matters.

Advertisement length starts from 15 seconds minimum, 30 seconds or longer and they pay from RM1,500 per month for a 15 second ad displayed across the whole fleet of participating taxis, RM3,000 for a 30 second ad and more for ads of longer duration.

The duration of a taxi journey typically ranges from 10 to 45 minutes and can include more than one passenger.

If ad production is required, Futurelook charges from RM1,000 one-off per slide show, from RM1,500 per motion graphic and from RM2,500 for post production work in addition to its monthly advertising fee.

“iCab Digital is designed with the passenger, the driver and the advertiser in mind,” said Valens.

For example, the screen has a mute button for when the passenger wants to talk on his mobile phone or to the driver. Sensors detect the presence of a passenger and will only run the add when there' someone sitting there to avoid forcing the driver to listen to the ad playing continuously, which can become rather stressful and annoying to the driver over time.

In addition to iCab Digital, advertisers can also opt to place their brochures, discount cards, flyers and other promotional material in the iCab Promo Pouch located in the back of the front passenger seat and  of the passenger wants to advertise too, he can obtain a contact card from the driver.

“Based on a minimum of 30 passengers per taxi per day over 25 working days per month, we estimated that there is a total of 75,000 viewership per month across 100 taxis,” said Valens.

The videos are stored on a microSD card inserted into the media player. Futurelook had originally planned to remotely update the videos over the 3G networks of the big three operators but found coverage to be inconsistent across different parts of the Klang Valley, such as in places like Shah Alam and moreover, with about 1GB worth of content to be downloaded to each screen, it would not only be impractical and prohibitively expensive.

So instead, Futurelook hired a team of technicians who would meet the taxi drivers and manually replace the microSD cards within the first five days of the month, which Futurelook finds to be a more practical and cheaper option.

It also pays each taxi owner RM30 to have the iCab screens, which is in line with the the market prices for taxi advertising, such as RM10 per month for a boot lid banner.

“We already have around 1,200 taxis waiting to install an iCab screen and we could segment the adds across the next batch of 100 taxis,” said Valens.

Further details of Futurelook's taxi advertising and a downloadable ad application form are available on www.icab.com.my.