Article
Network profile: JetSet Media
Luxury signage network brings information, ads to private air travelers.
November 5, 2007 by James Bickers — Editor, Networld Alliance
Rich demographics don't get much richer than this. Catering to private air travelers, Kansas City, Mo.-based JetSet Media operates screens in 70 private terminals (known in industry parlance as Fixed Base Operations, or FBOs), bringing a mix of advertisements and information to c-level executives, celebrities and athletes.
It's an audience powerful enough to make ad buyers drool: JetSet's typical audience member has a net worth of $10 million and an investment portfolio of $6 million, buys a new luxury car once a year and owns at least two homes.
The company was founded in January 2006, and turned on its first screen in May of that year. President and founder George Kauffman said landing those first few venues was incredibly difficult.
"Gaining the venues was nearly impossible in the early going," he said. "I often say getting the first six was much harder than getting the last 50. And what's more, we knew going in that (we'd need) at least 50 FBOs in order to sell a single ad on this network."
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Kauffman said his company started with an extensive interview process, asking FBO owners what kind of information would actually be useful to their passengers without being intrusive or overpowering. Since the network would be subsidized by advertisements, a delicate balance had to be struck.
"This FBO industry is a very conservative group, so asking them to alter their business even in the slightest of manners is taken very seriously," he said. "Losing or disappointing a single customer is something they generally will not risk, when they are buying 1,500 gallons of jet fuel for $5 a gallon."
Part of the screen's value proposition for both FBO and passenger is the Flight Tracker, a Flash application that pulls data from the FAA to show all inbound flights. Kauffman said many of his customers now are using the screens as a central source of planning information, directing everyone from limo drivers to family members to use them.
Weather radar gets a slice of the screen real estate, as does the FBO owner himself — a portion of the screen is devoted to advertising local products and services, such as fuel prices and jet sales.
The screens run on software from Popstar Networks.
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A JetSet Media screen in a luxury lounge in Essex, N.J. |
"Once we saw the screen, we were sold," said Russ Boy Jr., proprietor of Ft. Lauderdale-based National Jets. "The screen sure does get a lot of attention in my facility."
That seems to be the case in other facilities, as well. Earlier this year, JetSet ran a piece of advertiser content from Cessna that poked fun at turboprop planes ("Friends don't let friends fly turboprops"). It was an ad that had run in print magazines for years, without generating a single complaint. Within three days of the ad going up on the JetSet screens, the company had received 37 complaints from customers who feared the ad would insult their valued flyers.
"Typically, I wouldn't tout such an event, but the underlying point is that the ad was being seen and eliciting an immediate response," Kauffman said. "Cessna was thrilled, and simply pulled down that tag line."
Kauffman said his company is on target to have screens in 130 to 150 FBOs by the end of 2008, with most of the growth due to word-of-mouth referrals.
About James Bickers
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