Surf Before You Fly
SO WHAT DO you do while waiting to board a plane? That downtime could be spent checking stock quotes, sending e-mail, Web surfing-and taking in marketing messages.
An Englewood, CO-based outfit is busy erecting Internet terminals in airports across the land. Unlike most services for public Internet access, Get2Net doesn’t charge end users; its revenue comes from advertising.
Its target audience is, obviously, business travelers. Get2Net (www.get2netcorp.com), which launched in September, currently has 111 terminals in place, and plans to deploy 1,000 by year end and 6,000 by 2003. It has a contract with Host Marriott Services Corp., the concession provider in most airports. The kiosks are in airport concourses and restaurants (including at JFK in New York, Boston Logan and Chicago O’Hare) and a few roadside travel plazas.
Location Is Key The opportunity is all about location. “Dwell time” between checking in and boarding is 70 minutes and most people don’t have an airline club membership, says spokeswoman Pam Osborne. There are easier things in life than finding a place at the airport to plug in a laptop.
Online advertising includes traditional banners, but the biggest wow is with sponsorships-in this case, sponsoring the free session for a certain time frame. In return, sponsors get full screen ads, logo placement on every page, banner ads and a screen-saver ad.
Besides the online advertising, the kiosks have laminated placards and “take one” cards.
One charter sponsor is financial news network and Web site CBS MarketWatch (cbs.marketwatch. com). Michele Chaboudy, vice president of marketing, says Get2Net turned out to be an important tool for driving people to the site, which can be downloaded for checking stock prices or the latest business news.
“I use it as part of our offline advertising because a major part of it is outdoor advertising in airports,” Chaboudy says. “I get the extra bonus because once they use the machine they get immediately onto our site. So you have the reinforcement of seeing the branding in airports and the ability to act on what they see right away.”
Osborne says Get2Net tested a pay model for users but found “it’s just not a viable way to go.” The company got 1.5 customers a day per terminal, where now it gets 30 (which adds up to 60,000 unique users a month).
Advertisers receive statistical reports, including number of visitors and demographics (from surveys users fill out at the beginning of the free session). Average income of a Get2Net user is $67,400, average age is 42, 43% are women and 59% travel for business. (Get2Net plans to target advertising based on this data soon.)
In April, the company announced a “money-back guarantee” program, under which the advertiser is assured 33 exposures per each sponsored session.
HotOffice Technologies Inc., Boca Raton, FL, is currently testing the system, sponsoring 15,000 20-minute sessions a month for three months. Users see an ad explaining what HotOffice is and an option for registering for the service. HotOffice (www.hotoffice.com) lets people access their e-mail and files from a Web browser.
