Kenya’s TabAds Takes Out The Boredom From Your Cab Journeys, Cashes In From Digital Ads
The traditional media ranging from television, newspaper, radio, and billboards have enjoyed the centre stage for long. But who has got the time these days, to consume these mediums? Hectic work schedule, busy social life, and diminishing attention span are all indicators of the lack of time.
With the rising numbers in digital gadgets and boost in the data connectivity, it has already established itself as the new medium. With the amount of time spent on the digital platforms, it is becoming imperative for the advertisers to meet the consumers where they are. The explosive growth in digital ad spends over last few years by advertisers are a testimony to this trend.
What has interestingly popped up in this shift, is the new medium of Digital Out Of Home Advertising (DOOH). As per a report by marketsandmarkets, this market is expected to reach USD 26.21 Bn by 2023, at a CAGR of 10.7% between 2017 and 2023. The increased spending on programmatic advertising, advancements in technology offerings, and infrastructure expansions are the key driving factors for the digital out of home market.
According to JCDecaux Global Ad Spends Forecast – DOOH will grow by 15% in 2018 reaching USD 5 Bn and accounting for 18% of total OOH spend excluding cinema. With the trend catching up globally, African countries too are showing some promising stats here. Entertainment and Media Outlook, a PWC report says, Nigeria is the fastest growing market in the continent when it comes to DOOH with a CAGR of 47.5% between 2016 to 2020. Kenya comes second in the continent with a growth rate of 26.9% followed by South Africa at 13.4%.
With the launch of TabAds, an advertising agency currently operating in Nairobi, its Founder & CEO Patrick Cheruiyot is very confident about cracking the same growth rate. They feel that they have a value proposition for their clients and are willing to do something different to make their offerings exciting for their customers.
“We believe that for too long in Nairobi, outdoor advertising has been limited to billboards and other forms of outdoor advertising that are stationary, with a relatively low and immeasurable ROI,” says Patrick.
In their experience, many B2B businesses tend to steer away from outdoor marketing due to their inability to target distinctive audiences uniquely. During their research on audiences, they found taxi riders are a premium lot and a perfect fit for B2B businesses. They are tech-savvy individuals with credit cards and smartphones. TabAds is connecting these two entities and plans to provide an entertaining, as well as an interactive platform with a measurable ROI and tangible results.
The young startup provides tablets to be placed behind headrests in cabs and control them through an automated process, to stream movies, music, interactive display content and much more to on the go passenger. They have content of multiple genres to keep the viewers relaxed and immersed in entertainment as claimed by the startup.
Launched in November 2017 and currently piloting, TabAds plans to use their tablets to advertise and help their clients reach a well-targeted market. They claim to be Kenya’s first In-Cab Digital Advertising Platform and are monitoring about 500+ rides happening every day and approximately 1,000+ people who spend 35+ minutes of their day in cabs.
Early in January 2018, they closed a seed funding round from a local angel investment network. They plan to use this funding to expand to Nigeria and Ghana, as they see a lot of similarities with Nairobi.
Patrick Cheruiyot
On the challenges faced by the startup, Patrick says, “So far, the only difficulty we have faced is signing up more drivers for our platform.” He attributes this challenge to the fear of the unknown. To incentivise the drivers to adopt the tablets in the cab, the startup offers them a monthly stipend as a token of appreciation.
“Our main aim is to prove the concept and get some customer validation” adds Patrick.
