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The New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission reported over 20 million orders for rideshare trips in February, according to The Wall Street Journal, which noted that was 20 million times that captive audiences were shut into small metal boxes wending their way through city traffic. Those passengers weren't watching ads at the time, but that will soon change.
A new law just passed by the New York City Council ended a ban on ads inside rideshares, all in the name of creating another line of passive income for the drivers. It's not quite the last frontier of product promotions, but it's close. In our ad-crazy world, digital promotional clips crop up absolutely everywhere, from bus stops to the far corners of many websites, to the start menu of your new Windows PC. Uber and Lyft rides offered a brief respite from "Buy! Buy! Buy!" but not for much longer.
The law recently took effect despite opposition from the Taxi and Limousine Commission, which had a "general disdain" for in-car ads, which have been part of the yellow taxi rider's experience for nearly two decades, the paper reported. Passengers don't like them, finding the volume annoying, the group says, and neither do drivers--which makes sense, once you ponder exactly how many times a driver hears the same cheery jingles and sales spiels during a typical shift. Luckily, the law doesn't mandate that rideshare drivers use the in-car ad systems. And it requires that there is either an off switch or a volume control.
Why's this significant? It's a simple matter of numbers: Taxi TV, a similar in-cab screen system for licensed yellow cabs, debuted in 2007. But as of February, there were only 9,000 active cabs in the city, the WSJ says, and approximately 100,000 rideshare drivers. That's a huge opportunity. So, the ban is now gone, and rideshare drivers will be entitled to at least 25 percent of the relevant ad revenue shown on tablets inside the cars.
The rideshare companies themselves are, of course, eager for the new revenue stream. The WSJ notes that Lyft's public policy manager for New York State wrote to the city council last year to explain in-car ads provide "passive income to a community that is constantly being asked to give more."
That sounds like a move to support drivers, but it's keeping the quiet bit quiet: that the main part of the lovely new ad money won't go to the workers subjected to hours of ads each workday, while driving in grueling traffic conditions. Seventy-five percent of rideshare ad revenue will go to the company that holds the license to provide the tablets, which may be Uber or Lyft or another service or, as the WSJ points out, "another tech vendor." On the upside, there's an opportunity here to make a lot of money and maybe room for new startups to pitch in-rideshare ad services.
It's all part of the inevitable digital era advertising-ocalypse, it seems. The WSJ quotes Kamran Asghar, U.S. chief executive of Crossmedia, an ad-buying media company, who said, "Advertising finds its way to eyeballs like water finds its way through cracks in your house."
The thing is, you can patch cracks in your house, and they don't try to sell you Broadway tickets, the latest weight-loss drug, or ambulance-chasing legal services.
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26.04.2024
How Van Leeuwen Ice Cream's Laura O'Neill and Other Growth-Minded Entrepreneurs Keep Their North Star
What's Behind Reid Hoffman's AI-Focused Charm Offensive
3 Ways to Master Your Email Inbox, According to Mark Cuban
Relationship Guru Esther Perel's 7 Ideas for Keeping Calm and Staying Inspired
Is Matthew Kenney the Adam Neumann of Vegetables?
The New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission reported over 20 million orders for rideshare trips in February, according to The Wall Street Journal, which noted that was 20 million times that captive audiences were shut into small metal boxes wending their way through city traffic. Those passengers weren't watching ads at the time, but that will soon change.
A new law just passed by the New York City Council ended a ban on ads inside rideshares, all in the name of creating another line of passive income for the drivers. It's not quite the........
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