Mr. Soji Ogundowo is  the  Co-Founder of  S &T    Media, a digital place-based advertising company, whose  strength lies in digital platform networked into fillings stations, called   AdPump. He spoke on the strength of the product, how it came about and why it is different from conventional and digital billboards.  Princewill Ekwujuru  reports.

What is AdPump?

We like to call our viewers the captive or engaged audience.    And most importantly they are  active audience because they are out  of their homes,  and  are actually always with the intention to purchase.

We call our maiden platform AdPump. These are the screens that you might have seen at some Forte oil, Oando, Total  filling stations. The AdPumps are 22-inch screens televisions, double sided with high quality audio  that are placed on top of the metre of fuel pumps at filling stations. This is so that when people are buying fuel, they can have some messages  of advertising directed at them. This is called targeted advertising.

How does it work?

AdPump has a four minutes cycle. Within that four minutes cycle we have a partnership with channels television for news. So, for channels news at 10pm we have a 30 seconds segment that starts off our week, the same cycle of 30 seconds ad space, we then have 30 seconds sports package so that if you are interested in sports, you can access  the latest  football  news.    We also have 30 seconds advert space and then after that we have another 30 seconds entertainment segment. So our major partners are Channels TV and Pulse.ng, they give us fresh contents   every day that we upload remotely to all our locations.

What we don’t want is when you go to the same petrol station you see the same things every time, otherwise you get bored and you stop passing that way. So every time you go to that particular petrol station, you will see something fresh on the screen, things you will be interested in, may be news, sports, entertainment, and  music, so we try and get everyone something, and in exchange the opportunity to look at our ads.

Is there a similarity between web surfing with mobile phone and your AdPump technology?

No it’s actually very different, as mobile phones get more prominent, there is a technology called NFC that will be adopted into our platforms as well. This means that when you drive into a filling station our platform will be able to communicate with your mobile phone and send an ad to your mobile phone as well.

So there will be a correlation between our screens and your phone. This is exactly what we want. And the fact that more people are focusing on our screen is because it is not strange for them to drive into a petrol station and see another screen. They are already used to having screens all around them. The screens that people will be seeing at the filling stations will not be strange, it’s good for us. Another thing  that gives our product an edge is the policy  and procedure at the filling stations. When you  drive into a petrol station, for instance, the first thing they ask you to do is to turn off your engine and look at the  petrol pump. You cannot  lose sight of your product, as you look at the pump, but in a way it is good for us because we have the technology that is going to be incorporated into this process that will give us an advantage.

How do you monitor traffic and measure engagement through AdPump?

There is no way to guarantee that every eye ball is caught, but there is a technology that can do that, but we have not introduced that yet. But what we can guarantee is the number of visitors on average. So most of the visitors at the filling station and each pump, we can tell number of visitors to the filling pumps, we can tell the sales of each pump anytime it goes back to zero. What we find out through our research and through our partners is that most of these filling stations do an average of between 1,800 to 2,500 focuses per day.

So when you think of an average of an eye- ball- to- eye-ball, of two persons, sometimes it is more, if you have a commercial bus or a car. But when we take the example of say two persons in a vehicle per day, when you have 2000 vehicles in a filling station you are looking at 4,000 views per day.    If you multiple that by 50 stations  or by 100, you are looking at a larger number.

So we do have a way, when we talk about data analytics which is a way more advanced than our competitors, different from the roadside billboard which you cannot determine if I looked at it or not.

Ours is targeted at customers, when they drive into a filling station. When an attendant asks you to look at the pump, there’s every tendency that you will virtually look at the screen, whether you are looking or not looking, we know we have grabbed your attention.

Do you not think that AdPump will be a source of distractions to motorists?

Yes they can cause distraction but ours is a different kind. It is in an enclosed area where your engines have to be switched off. We actually want you to be distracted whether you stay one or five minutes at the filling station. We don’t want you to get bored fuelling your car, we want to keep you company while you fill your car, with more pleasant experience.

In fact, we want to be a distraction at the filling stations that is what we want. You wouldn’t cause an accident because you have switched off your car engine.    Unless you enjoy what you are watching and you don’t want to leave, that will be a bit of delay to others.

What is the cost implication for all these installations?

We have an agreement with our partners, but it’s a mutual beneficial agreement with our downstream partners that is what works for us. We have commercial partnership. There is a chargeable benefit they receive like free adverts for their own benefit.