En Route Media’s Innovative Advertising Platform, Flo, Wins Themthe‘Innovative Creation of a New Medium’ Award
En Route Media was one of the first companies to introduce in-taxi entertainment and advertising in India. Their product, Flo, a touchscreen tablet, has been installed in over 250 EasyCabs in Mumbai. This network of screens was setup about 6 months ago and in this period, En Route has received great response from their passengers. They have also partnered with content producers like CNBC TV 18,
Fox Traveler, Zee News, etc.
Flo has a system in place, which tracks how a passenger interacts with the content being delivered to him/her. So, it can collate how many people watched a particular video, the duration of viewing and also when they watched it. This allows them to adjust the content according to the preferences of the viewers.
“In terms of advertisers, initially, it was difficult to get brands to realize the value in this medium, as it was the first of its kind in India. But we were always appreciated for taking the bold move of introducing something so creative to the Indian market. Over time, it has gotten easier for brands to appreciate our medium as they see the benefits of engaging with a niche audience in a captive environment through a digital medium, and get higher ROI as compared to other media,” said Paul Schwartz, Co-founder, En Route Media.
En Route has already worked with an impressive list of advertisers. In the past, they have worked with the likes of Volkswagen, McDonald’s, Kotak, ET Now, etc. Currently, the advertisers using Flo are Go Air, India's Glam Diva, Eros, The Economist and Buzzr.in.
Recently, En Route Media won the award for ‘Innovative Creation of a New Medium’ at the OOH Awards, 2012. Commenting about this, Paul said, “Being benchmarked against the best in your sector and having the VIPs of India's OOH space find you worthy of coming out on top is just an incredible reward for the hard work our team has put into this over the years. It serves as a very strong motivator to keep walking the path of unchartered territory and keep up our work of creating digital solutions for captive environments.”
Speaking about their expansion plans, Varun Jain, Co-founder, En Route Media, said, “Our immediate plans of expansion include rolling out over 1000 screens in EasyCabs in the next few months. We are also in talks with multiple other major radio cab players to roll out our platform and services across the country.”
En Route has distinct ad spots on offer for the advertisers. The video wall is an important space. TVC’s are interspersed with En Route’s content here to create maximum impact. The side banner is the other advertising space. It is a powerful tool for call-to-action messages. Flo also allows interactivity, which adds a new dimension to the ads. These are their sources of revenue. They will soon be launching branded apps as well.
En Route had earlier tied-up with Buzzr.in to bring the best deals in town right at the finger tips of passengers sitting in a taxi. Read the detailed report of this tie-up here.
We expect more innovative developments in this space. Watch out this space for more updates.
