A spot at the bar
By offering flat-screen TVs to owners at no charge, advertisers hope to reach the lucrative under-35 crowd where they spend much of their time
In the space between two projection screens and five flat-panel televisions at Paddy O's in Faneuil Hall, a new kind of TV is hanging on the wall. And the plasma is popping up in pubs across Boston.
The TVs - four of them at Paddy O's - play short clips of extreme sports and advertisements for everything from Jim Beam whiskey to Jeep. There's no ESPN, no Red Sox games on New England Sports Network, just a private digital network known as "i-am TV." Instant Access Media puts the TVs in some of the largest bars across the nation to stalk a generation that uses TiVo and other digital video recorders to skip ads.
Since October, Instant Access Media has installed i-am TVs in about 20 Boston area locations - with each bar averaging three to four screens. By year-end, the Denver business hopes to expand its footprint to more than 40 bars in Boston and more than double its 300 bars nationwide to 750.
The initiative reflects a growing effort by advertisers to reach consumers outside the home, with TV screens appearing at supermarket checkout lines and in elevators at office buildings, where advertisers know they have a captive audience. I-am TV is hoping to be a solution for marketers targeting 21-to-34-year-old males, a coveted demographic that advertisers have found increasingly elusive.
"They don't read newspapers. They no longer listen to the radio in the car - they have CDs and their iPods plugged in," said Todd Martin, chief executive of Instant Access Media. "They're 30 percent more likely to use a DVR to skip commercials. And they're not in the home; they're out and about. So we need to catch them when they're out."
I-am TV started out as a yearlong experiment in Denver two years ago. The company wanted to see how the satellite network worked at local sports bars, whether advertisers would pay for commercials, and if customers actually watched the ads.
Everyone quickly bought into the concept, Martin said. And after commissioning a study by radio ratings and media research firm Arbitron that showed young, educated males spending an average of 2 1/2 hours at bars more than five days a month, i-am TV took its show on the road. Instant Access Media set its eyes on Boston as one of the first markets because of the heavy concentration of high-volume, independently owned bars.
Many local bar owners say the decision to feature i-am TVs is a no-brainer. Instant Access Media provides the screens - 42- to 60-inch plasmas - and installations for free. Ad revenues support the cost of the TVs and programming, but Instant Media Access would not say how much marketers pay for the ads.
The company also designs free ads for bars to promote on the network, everything from Happy Hour at Hennessey's in Faneuil Hall to Wednesday night trivia at the Baseball Tavern near Fenway Park.
At Ned Devine's, the TVs have helped tidy up the bar, said Austin O'Connor, chief executive of the Briar Group, which runs several Irish pubs in Boston. With ads running on the screens promoting specials, the bar no longer needs fliers and posters plastered on the walls.
O'Connor said he considered BarCast, a local company that has an interactive network of flat-panel TVs at bars that display ads on a split screen and allow patrons to communicate within and between locations via text message, uploaded photos, and live video conferencing. But O'Connor decided to go with i-am TV instead, preferring control over the content and the full-screen display.
The only problem so far? Pub owners have run into requests from customers to change i-am TV to live sports events, such as Celtics games. But the answer is simple: There's only one channel.
Currently, i-am TV features an all-liquor lineup of ads with about 15 minutes an hour of commercials from marketers such as Jim Beam, Coors, and Killian's. Last fall, the network included spots for Jeep, Burger King, and the movies "Saw IV" and "Good Luck Chuck."
Teddy Lynn, director of branded content at Boston ad firm Arnold, said i-am TV makes sense, especially for beverage businesses.
"The coveted 21-34 crowd is particularly hard to reach for companies whose advertising is constrained by regulators," Arnold said. "The liquor companies have a particularly difficult time with this, so opportunities to target their customers at the moment and in the location at which they are making purchase decisions is especially valuable."
By the end of the year, Martin says he hopes to dedicate about 25 minutes an hour for ads, the rest saved for short clips of extreme sports like skiing off cliffs. Instant Access Media is currently signing deals to be revealed in the coming weeks with mobile phone carriers, automakers, and other new advertisers.
"They are able to reach the biggest and best in our core markets," said Rennie Solomito, a Jim Beam spokesman. "We have the ability to update our branding message and content daily and at the same time, provide an interactive forum for real-time text-in polling with our targeted consumers."
This year, Coors created a football-trivia ad on i-am TV that asked viewers to text answers with the chance to win a 42-inch plasma screen. More than 5,000 people texted their answers and received messages back telling them to "Be sure to enjoy a refreshing Coors Lite tonight."
Noelle Somers, manager of Paddy O's, said the new screens haven't yet translated into increased sales of Coors or Jim Beam. But she's seen an uptick in attendance at bar events promoted on the screens. On a recent Friday, a group of guys just stared at the screens watching the extreme sports.
But other customers hardly seem to notice. At Paddy O's one recent evening, Traci Troutman, 28, a dietitian from the Back Bay, sat with a TV screen playing soccer on one side and the i-am TV featuring skiing and ads on the other. She was tuned out to both.
"I'm pretty desensitized. There's so many TVs everywhere you go, in supermarkets, in the mall," said Troutman, sipping her Newcastle beer. "I don't even notice them."
Jenn Abelson can be reached at abelson@globe.com.
