SA Taxi Media
SA Taxi Media changes taxi advertising industry while enabling taxi operators to benefit from the advertising cash flow.
SA Taxi, a gateway financer of minibus taxis, has launched the country’s first media company enabling advertisers to use technology to select a target audience scientifically and then measure precisely what their return on investment is on media campaigns based on adverts placed inside and outside of minibus taxis.
In the process, SA Taxi enables taxi entrepreneurs to benefit from the advertising cash flow.
“We provide a unique technological ability for brands to segment their national consumer markets all the way down to an individual taxi and its route – from a pool of 23 000 taxis.” says Bonisile Makubalo, director of corporate affairs at SA Taxi.
“Brands can, therefore, target their campaigns accurately around the GPS co-ordinates of their branch network or commuter hubs that have particular relevance to them. This level of geographic segmentation has never been possible in the taxi advertising industry before.”
”For media campaigns, SA Taxi Media works with premium taxi operators,” Mr Makubalo says. “These are established black-owned small businesses that are financially stable, whose taxis have high mileage, whose ethics and safety records customers respect, and with whom SA Taxi has regular, direct communication.
“So, brands are assured of receiving optimal coverage on the road from a captive audience.”
SA Taxi is a member of the Transaction Capital Group of companies that listed on the JSE in 2012. It therefore offers advertisers a rare combination of the depth of its 14 years of experience in the taxi industry and the financial stability of its group pedigree. SA Taxi’s credentials as a certified developmental credit provider add further value.
“Inherently, by providing operators with access to finance, we are financing black entrepreneurs and their small businesses,” Mr Makubalo says. “It was an organic next step to position SA Taxi Media as an enterprise development solution focused on developing financial opportunities for taxi operators through media exposure. As a result, the advertiser’s investment can be allocated to its enterprise development targets.”
The initial impetus behind the establishment of SA Taxi Media, however, was that fact that operators often struggle to make their taxi businesses successful.
“It costs operators a great deal of money to keep their vehicles safe and operational,” Mr Makubalo says. “But, because commuters are feeling the financial squeeze, operators cannot simply increase their fares to cover their own escalating costs.
“As a consequence, we constantly apply our financial expertise in search of revenue generation opportunities that will keep our customer small, medium, and micro enterprises (SMMEs) sustainable. In this case, the opportunity lay in our extremely detailed and accurate data about where each vehicle is at what times. Establishing SA Taxi Media to be the conduit between advertisers and operators helps us help our operators.”
Through its long association with taxi operators, its national footprint, and purpose-built, state of the art technology systems, SA Taxi Media provides a fast, efficient administrative capability with high level production and application standards that maintain the integrity of the brands advertised.