China taxis to get interactive touch

The screens are sub-divided between a theatre section broadcasting a mix of advertising and entertainment and a sidebar offering interactive options. The theatre will play through an 18-minute loop, showing two minutes of ads followed by one minute of general entertainment, such as music video clips and movie trailers. The new company, Touch Media, is offering brand-owners the option to sponsor nine out of 11 icons running along the bottom of the screen, which can trigger interactive and broadcast content, with a purchase securing category exclusivity. The other two icons respectively serve as a volume control and a source of local shopping and entertainment information tailored to each city. Rates will be gauged according to how much passengers are exposed to advertiser content, calcuated from a database that records journey times and use of the screen's interactive options. Touch Media is to conduct a trial run of the technology in Shanghai in April, ahead of a planned rollout in 18,000 taxis in Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou from April to July. The firm has set a target of having screens in over 100,000 taxis across Greater China and Japan by the end of 2007. "As a medium, it has good potential," said Maggie Choi, Greater China MD for OMD. "It is interactive and has the benefit of having a captive audience in a controlled environment." Whether the new medium can realise this potential hinges on its ability to deliver high quality sound and visuals and how well the monitors are maintained, Choi added. It is yet to be seen whether passengers will actually take to the new technology and what kind of reach it can deliver. "A lot of it has to do with how good the technology is," she said. Touch Media will operate the system itself in the three top tier cities but is looking for franchise partners for a proposed introduction this year in Shenzhen, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Tianjin, Shenyang, Sichuan and Shanxi.