This article is kind of special to me. This is mostly because this is legitimately the oldest draft in my blog posts. I was going through my old diaries and came across notes I had written for the post…about 5 years ago.
A few years ago, as i commuted home I came across something I hadn’t seen in the city. A moving billboard! On a bicycle. The concept felt particularly enginius to me and I was surprised recently when I realised the company had stopped being active. I was sure that these guys had nailed an Evergreen market with this one. A literal home run.
The #BikeAdsZw Concept
A startup called Aereon Media had seen a gap in the advertising space locally and saw how to take advantage of it. They started a concept that would run with the #BikeAdsZw hashtag on social media. They provided billboards moved on bicycles, a cyclist would move with a trailer of sorts that was the billboards. This allowed them to move to certain areas as well as to events to target specific individuals.
Throughout the article I will not mention much around the environment-friendly side of Bicycle based billboards. That’s because the honest truth is Africa and Zimbabwe do not care about environment friendly solutions yet. No one in Zimbabwe is choosing a supplier based on how ‘green’ they are. This is now the case outside Africa where the green solutions sometimes cost more but companies want to be aligned with being eco-friendly.
Why Bike Advertising Was a Great Concept
Location, Location, Location
Look, a lot goes into the decision to have a billboard running. At most times budget constraints mean that companies that can only pay for one billboard have to focus on one area and forgo having they wonderful ad shared with their other desired Markets. With Bike Ads, companies could easily decide where and when a billboard would be in certain areas which meant that they could actually target specific areas as they wished. Imagine creating a school specific product for the medium to low density areas and thinking where to put it. That’s a headache in itself. No imagine being able to send it to all the schools in a tour fashion over several weeks.
Cost
The mere size and make up of Aereon Media billboards meant that these would cost possibly significantly less than the standard billboard. Which also meant that instead of one, maybe you could get several billboards instead. This would have been perfect in a current zimbabwe scenario where exchange rate fluctuations have got companies scrutinizing costs more than ever. How many companies would be drooling over such a service now?
Possible challenges with the Bike Advertising Model
Pricing model
How does one price such a product? I know if I had started it I would have probably spent the most time on this aspect. It’s very tempting to think about how bicycles are probably less costly because they are not cars with fuel and maintenance cost but is it really the same.
Manpower Costs
The manpower costs associated with a service like this can literally derail a business. Unlike a static billboard, the longer you have a campaign on BikeAds the more you need to pay the biker. You need to make sure that the bicycle rider has food for lunch and is generally motivated.
Mall Security
Some of the lucrative places to set up a billboard are quite frankly, shopping malls. The correct positioning and you can get eyeballs from all the people you need. Unfortunately, shopping malls like Sam Levy’s Village have taken it upon themselves to reduce “harassment” to their patrons by policing and reducing the amount of people selling to them through unorthodox ways while they are at the malls. This means mall guards would be more likely to get rid of our mobile billboard friends and treat them like hawkers.
What I would do now?
Partner with Shopping Malls
The concept allows low cost billboard investments that reduce capital costs. At the same time becuase these billboards are moveable, there’s less worry of what happens when they have outgrown thier need. I would take the concept to shopping malls; work on a rental model and have them just pay monthly to keep the stands. The content could be theirs manage but with a shared revenue model.
Events targeting
Zimbabwe, Harare in particluar has morphed into this event-crazed outdoor functions environment. Every other week there’s an event happening in an outdoor area. If it’s not Unplugged, it’s Cookout, LakeJuly or Braai Out. In addition, most nights out start with drinks in open air spaces; parking lots at shopping malls and the like. Not necessarily legal but it’s happening.
There are lot’s of brands that want to reach out to that market of people. This is from alcohol distributors to events organizers. In the same breath, all events offer advertising packages to sponsors. Working with a brand like BikeAdsZw could allow them to offer more ad space…more eyeballs!
Syndicate to Advertising Companies
The advertising business in Zimbabwe is almost like the Mafia. You have all the big companies with years on top in Zimbabwe keeping hold of most of the adverts. Also, most businesses have difficulties trusting new businesses with something as important as communicating to their customers.
What BikeAds could do is to approach the existing advert businesses and offer them a syndicate partnership of their bikes and billboards. What this would mean is that the big companies like JC Decaux, Alliance Media, Askeland Media could start offering their clientele the bike adverts service and then engage Aereon Media to execute. The value proposition to the advertising companies is that they can start offering the business at zero capital investment costs. For Aereon, they don’t have to focus on business development anymore.
This could work. I like this idea the most.
The Silver Lining
In true entrepreneur fashion, this could not be the last we would hear of Aereon. They seem to have pivoted or expanded their mission to provide larger scale advertising services and website domain services.
It would be nice to see the Bike Ads come back to life in current Zimbabwe. There’s really a gap in the market. It’s possible that the last time it was a tad bit too early for the market. Zimbabwe now has a lot of startups and small businesses and brands looking to advertise their services at affordable rates and the Bike Ads could be the solution. I would love to hear what the guys think.
Remember, continuously improve yourself. #kaizenYou
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