GuangXue Media (光学传媒), video media in buildings, has completed a 30 million yuan (approx. $4.8 million) A round financing. The investment was led by QF Capital, followed by Bos Mutus Capital. The financing will be used for expansion in Beijing and Shenzhen.
An elevator is a necessary vehicle in work and life of the urban population. The time spent in the elevator is a good opportunity to seize the attention of the users. According to GuangXue Media, there are nearly 5 million elevators in the country in 2016. The supply of grade A office building in the main cities of China in 2017 was 5.8 million square meters, adding to the market.
China’s Focus Media Company took the lead in verifying the market. The latest data showed that Focus Media had covered 150 cities and 1.5 million terminals, but the amount of elevator maintained was still less than 10%.
“At present, most of the marketing companies project flat and small screen videos. Platform media are mostly in the form of frame media and elevator door stickers, appearing in the form of static posters. Small screen video media is a hoisting device inside and outside the elevator. The average size of the display screen is about 15 inches, which makes it difficult to carry high-quality videos. At the elevator’s visual core position – the elevator door, cross posters are mostly used, whereas the video media of the elevator door is an untapped market,” said SHEN Zhenchao, founder of GuangXue Media, to the Chinese biztech media 36Kr.
The solution of GuangXue Media is to focus on the ultrashort focal projection of the elevator. On the elevator door, a large screen dynamic video is presented to capitalize on the position value of the elevator door. The way of profiting is through the rental of advertising space to advertisers.
It is worth mentioning that the new generation of devices released by GuangXue Media has “activity recognition” technology embedded in it – How many people in the elevator have watched the advertisement. The data can be collected offline, meaning that the payment mode based on actual effect can be used, besides achieving accurate advertising from the user portrait analysis.
The number and quality of point positions covered and the recognition of the advertisers are key to garner market share for the building media. On the one hand, the advantages of elevator door video media compared to flat media and small screen video media are its position in the visual core area and large information carrying capacity to meet the demand of high quality videos. At the same time, the effect payment and precision delivery can be realized through the behavior recognition technology. On the other hand, these technical solutions must be built on point coverage. The advertisers will only pay the bill when there is a massive range coverage. Only by seizing as much range coverage as possible can a media company obtain the predominance of time.
According to GuangXue Media, nearly 3000 points have been laid in three direct business cities: Changsha, Beijing and Shenzhen. 60 thousand points are planned to be laid in 2018. In the building selection, the proportion of residential buildings is higher and the proportion of commercial buildings will be increased in the future.
On point expansion, GuangXue Media adopted the direct business + joint venture + affiliation model by selecting direct businesses or setting up controlling joint ventures in the core cities. No franchise fees are charged in the franchise model, but one-sixth of the advertising sites of the franchise belong to GuangXue HQ.
The team consists of SHEN Zhenchao, founder of GuangXue Media, has years of experience in real estate development, sales and operation; TAN Xiaohui, another founder, is the former city development director of Focus Media; ZENG Zijing, the CTO, has been the project manager of the telecom operation R&D department of Huawei, having 13 years of experience in IT industry.
