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The value of cashless payment is undeniable in terms of customer preference and operator value, but is there more operators can do when it comes to maximizing the value of a connection?
Introduction: The Power of Partnerships
Leveraging the power of partnerships, Crane Medianet, or “Medianet”, one of the unattended retail industry’s largest digital out-of-home media networks, has been working for over 5 years to help operators engage consumers while offsetting the costs of connecting their screened points of sale through third-party funded advertising campaigns.
For Crane MEDIA machine operators with active Crane cashless connections, the process of generating incremental advertising revenue is as simple as opting in to participate in third-party funded campaigns. Any campaigns they qualify for will display the media content and the operator will receive monthly payments for each participating screen over the campaign’s duration. Historically, third-party funded campaigns have offset as much as 30% of the operator’s monthly costs per connection - and for operators in the low-margin vending space, every penny counts.
But, what if that value-add partnership could be leveraged even further?
Problem Overview: Increasing Adoption
In 2019, a Top 10 Fortune 100 brand approached Medianet with the goal of using the digital out-of-home platform to help increase adoption of their mobile wallet’s peer-to-peer pre-paid debit card. By displaying a 25% discount offer on targeted Medianet screens, applying that discount in real-time to the consumers who chose to use it, and paying operators the full 25% discount value, this brand hoped to both increase adoption of its payment product at participating machines and drive higher repeat purchases among those consumers, including at adjacent [non-participating] machines.
The Outcome: Metrics That Matter for Everyone
In sum, participating machines saw an over 300% increase in use of the mobile payment option during the four-month campaign, and more than 200% after the campaign had ended [and the discount offer was no longer displayed or being applied].
Notably, Medianet also helped the brand advertiser grow new users by 65% across participating screened machines, and 58% in adjacent screen-less machines during the campaign period.
Yet, operators with machines participating in this campaign received an additional benefit: they had up to 40% more transactions than comparable peer group machines, (similar machines based on location, transaction volumes, and product offering that did not participate in the campaign) as shown below.
Summary: Media Driving Added Value
Crane Medianet has established itself as a leader in driving consumer engagement across unattended points of sale. While the insights Medianet gleans through its work for leading global brands can be transferred to operators for their own products and services, every third-party funded Medianet campaign also provides operators a reliable stream of incremental recurring ad revenue, offsetting their connectivity fees.
“The results of this particular campaign,” says Sharon Peyer, Vice President of Business Development and Media for Crane Payment Innovations, “underscore our media network’s unique ability to engage unattended consumers with messages that resonate so well they actually drive new behaviors that endure beyond the campaign horizon or advertised point of sale. Consequently, this brand client was comfortable providing operators and consumers significant up-front value via a fully funded 25% product discount in addition to our typical monthly campaign fees. The total transaction growth was a value-added benefit for operators.”
The campaign clearly reinforced the value of a connected screen to both attract a consumer’s attention and influence behaviors that multiply and endure. Any operator wishing to grow users of their own loyalty or payment alternative, for example, could likely generate similar results to this brand by leveraging Medianet’s expertise to display similar offers for their own products across any number of their Crane-connected screened points of sale.
What Operators Have to Say
“Working with Medianet gives us a leg up on our competition [who carry older equipment] and makes it an easy sell when we are trying to win new locations. Promotions like this add even more value in that they are plug-and-play and deliver real, measurable ROI”
- Marty McNally, Pepsi MidAmerica
“Medianet is a selling point for customers, and any campaign or promotion that adds to cash flow without overhead is great. In the 21st century, where everyone has a touchscreen phone in their pocket, the ability to take cards and NFC contactless payment and communicate promotions to the customer right through the screen are just handful of ways that cashless and media provide ROI.”
-George Caruso, Tahoe Vending and Sonoran Coffee & Food Services
