Above and beyond all the necessary actions to sell any product, you
have to have the right product. This is essentially the foundation. A
good product is a product that identifies need, distress or compulsion,
and tries to provide a solution. Such a product provides something
which already exists in the market, but does so in an easier, cheaper,
friendlier manner, or takes the needs of the specific market into
consideration. If it succeeds, it attracts a significant portion of the
clients in this market, after convincing them that it provides a
preferable service, a better price, or both.
That is the idea and the logic behind the new product "Aero-cash".
The service it provides, foreign currency exchange, is already provided
by banks and other financial service providers. However, for a variety
of reasons, it appears that Aero-cash has identified a specific need
existing in this market, and could fulfill it.
Aero-cash is an automatic machine for the exchange of currency, from
a variety of currencies to one specific currency. It recognizes the
specific bills inserted, and dispenses bills of the other currency. The
machine can do this not only with bills inserted, but by charging a
credit card.
The problem Aero-cash attempts to solve is familiar to anyone who has
travelled abroad. You land in the airport at your destination, and
realize that there is a long line at the bank to exchange currency in
the airport, or the bank is closed altogether. Occasionally you don't
want to waste time in the airport to exchange currency. Sometimes,
during your stay in the foreign country, you need to exchange additional
amounts of cash. Then it becomes clear that the hotel will exchange
foreign currency at a much higher rate (from your point of view) than
the banks, and banks may be closed, or there are none nearby, and
sometimes all this takes valuable time.
On the other hand, on your way to your destination, you spent too
much time on an airplane. If it were possible to take advantage of the
flight time to exchange the initial amounts of cash necessary for
immediate errands, one could avoid the waste of time at the airport.
And if it were occasionally possible to exchange currency at the hotel
at a rate no higher than the bank, it would be possible to avoid going
to the bank or paying the exorbitant price for currency exchange at the
concierge.
This is the need that the developers of Aero-cash identified. It is
possible to put these machines in airplanes on international flights, in
hotels and in airports. If the machine is easy to operate, reliable,
and inexpensive in terms of the exchange fee, there is no reason the
international traveller shouldn't use it.
Inflight Financial Services (IFS) is the company that developed and
operates the Aero-cash machine.
The overall fee for currency exchange in the airport banks is between
10.5% and 17%. This fee includes the rate difference for the sale and
purchase of currency and the fee for the exchange itself. This
situation provides the Aero-cash machine a wide range in which to
provide a lower fee.
The company's business plan suggests an 8% fee for currency exchange
in the machine. Of this, 20% will go into the pocket of the airline in
whose planes the machine is installed. The plan assumes that each plane
carries 100,000 passengers per year and that 15% of them will use the
machine to exchange amounts of at least $180. This means that the
machine on each plane will exchange $2.7 million. Income from the fee
will reach $216,000 annually.
In 1994 and 1995, three tests were done with the machine in three
airlines.
IFS has filed patents on the machine in a number of countries. Its
Israeli subsidiary placed the first machine in Ben Gurion Airport ten
days ago. In its first five days of activity, approximately 400 people
used it each day to exchange an average amount of $150.
After identifying the needs and developing the machine, the marketing
challenge is double-edged: convincing airlines, hotels and airports to
place the machines in exchange for a portion of the exchange fees, and
convincing the public to use the machine's services instead of banks and
money exchangers.
"Adult Only" Warnings Attract Young Viewers
New research reveals that warnings on television indicating that the
program is intended for adults and advising parents to remove children
from the room, actually attract children to watch the show. The
research was done by the University of Wisconsin, financed by the Cable
Television Companies' Association.
According to the research, warnings principally attract boys aged
10-14. This is also true of television movies intended only for adults.
In contrast, girls, particularly aged 5-9 do abstain from watching such
programs and movies that carry such a warning. As expected, in
households where the parents direct their children's viewing, the youth
tended to watch fewer of these programs.
Managers of television companies were not surprised by this
research. One manager said, "In some of the companies I have been
employed by, we added warnings on purpose in order to attract a larger
viewing audience. Sometimes, that worked better than broadcasting a
promotion for the movie."