Staples Business Depot calls on Freefone

Toronto - Marketing Magazine, December 21, 2004 Issue - The office supply retailer has signed a three-year deal that will see Freefone's ad-supported public telephones installed in 235 Staples Business Depot/Bureau en Gros stores across the country. The deal follows a test at 10 Staples Business Depot locations in the GTA last August.

Freefone currently has more than 100 of its units-which offer free local phone calls and digital ads-installed at Kelsey's restaurant outlets, Longo's grocery stores in the GTA, Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children, colleges and universities including Ryerson University in Toronto, plus Cadillac Fairview malls in British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick. President and CEODavid Parkes says that "many hundreds" of the units will be installed within the next three months.

The Freefone units are placed in high-traffic locations, with some campus units generating as many as 500 phone calls a day. The phones feature a 15-inch LCD screen that runs an eight-minute loop of full motion video and stereo sound. The audio is automatically muted when a person picks up the receiver.

Parkes says that Freefone's sales push is just beginning, although Bell Canada did come aboard as a charter sponsor last June. Parkes says Freefone has a CPMbetween $5 and $15. Ad partners such as Kelsey's, Staples and Bell are granted category exclusivity on the Freefone units.

"We think this is the most effective way for national brand managers to get their brand message out in a digital video way very close to the ultimate point of sale" says Parkes. "Which is one of the major objectives of all advertisers today."

Freefone also operates units in colleges, hospitals and shopping centres in Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio and is currently conducting a test with 26 Best Buy locations in the U.S.