June 10th, 2003
Meter Keeps Running, And So Do the Ads
By James Collins
Boston Globe
Boston cab riders endure a lot: no legroom, pungent air fresheners, odors the air fresheners sometimes can’t stifle, traffic, potholes, drivers who get lost.
Now add this: a computer monitor mounted behind the front seat that displays a never-ending loop of full-color television ads, alternating with tourist information about Boston.
It’s the brainchild of Rudolph Krutous, president of Auto Club Boston, an association of independent taxis that is beginning to install the devices this month and hopes to have them in 50 cabs by July 4.
Krutous has signed deals with an eclectic mix of businesses, including Russian Village, a Brookline restaurant; Precision Sound of Dedham; the immigration law firm of Brett & Covitz; Framingham Dodge; and a Framingham interior design company, Linea Italia.
For $1,600, advertisers will get their 15-second video clip displayed in 50 cabs; for $3,000, clients get 100 taxis’ worth for a month.
The ads, produced by an Auto Club subsidiary, Pointblank Medium, and similar in quality to low-budget local cable spots, are sandwiched around a greeting from Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino and bits of historical trivia.
Some people are mighty offended by the concept.
“Advertisers are trying to lay claim to every waking moment of our day and every square angstrom of space, and this is just part of that effort,” said Gary Ruskin, executive director of Commercial Alert, a nonprofit group in Portland, Ore., founded by consumer activist Ralph Nader.
Passengers can hit a mute button that turns off the sound, but the 10.4-inch flat screen plays on and on, regardless.
“Forced watching is still pretty offensive,” Ruskin said.
When passengers get in, “It’s a bit of a shock,” said Abdiaziz Ahmed, a 28-year-old driver for Metro Cab Association, as he showed off the new technology last week to passenger Sandy Barette, a medical researcher from Allentown, Pa. As 10- to 15-second spots for exhibits at area museums rolled across the screen, Barette, 56, watched intently.
“I guess I’d be looking out the window otherwise,” she said, shrugging her shoulders.
Krutous spent a year getting approval from the Boston Police Department’s Hackney Division to install the devices, which each cost about $1,000. Krutous pays a small weekly fee to the owner of each cab that carries the screens.
He said people he knows aren’t offended. “I don’t think so at all,” he said. Just the opposite: He said a survey of New Yorkers found a vast majority “think it’s a great idea.”
The concept has been tried in various shapes and sizes elsewhere in the United States, but so far, other Boston-area taxi advertisers are not biting. Clear Channel Taxi Media, a nationwide taxi advertising firm, tested similar in-car devices in several cities, but found the cost wasn’t worth it.
“Most of our clients would rather have ads on the exterior of the taxi,” said Mike MacDonald, the company’s regional vice president. Advertisements on the tops of cabs reach many passing drivers and pedestrians, while the flat-panel screens target only paying passengers, he said. The nationwide market for all types of taxi advertising, both inside and outside the cab, is about $50 million, MacDonald estimated.
Krutous said the new devices, which play DVDs full of alternating ads and historical information about Boston, are similar to models that other companies are using in New York and Las Vegas.
In Las Vegas, a small start-up called Captivads Inc. installed 200 touch-screen devices through a partnership with the city’s largest taxi company. Captivads pays about $2,000 to install each monitor. Since it’s Las Vegas, Captivads’ devices offer interactive touch-screen gambling and allow passengers to obtain more information about the ads by clicking a button. Passengers also can print out coupons, said general manager Chris Cothrun.
MacDonald said Clear Channel went one step further, briefly adding wireless Internet service to a handful of Las Vegas cabs. But the firm scrapped the feature - which allowed passengers to buy concert tickets and make reservations - when passengers didn’t use it, he said.
Captivads also considered offering wireless Internet service, but Cothrun said the city’s WiFi network, which provides short-range high-speed Internet access, was not broad enough. Wireless access will probably be a large part of taxicab advertising in the future, but few attempts to deploy the technology have been successful, Cothrun said.
“We can easily cover the cab yard, but we can’t cover the entire [Las Vegas] Strip or metropolitan area,” he said.
Larry Meehan, director of tourism at the Greater Boston Convention & Visitors Bureau, expressed hope that the new devices will make the trip into Boston more “civilized.”
“The taxicabs at Logan Airport act as ambassadors,” he said. “If you can actually look at some of the time you get stuck in traffic in Boston as quality time, we’re in favor of it.”