Details on New England start-up GoGo Cast’s deal with Gulf Oil

May 25, 2011 by Dave Haynes

The Rhode Island-based start-up GoGo Cast announced a deal recently to deploy Digital OOH ad screens at the point of sale in Gulf gas stations in the U.S.

The release was a little soft on details so I wanted to first get some sense of the deal terms, real size and timelines before writing anything. This was particularly important because the last news release I saw from GoGo was as over-inflated as Donald Trump’s ego.

This new one was far more measured, and the guys at GoGo kindly zipped me a note back to fill in a few gaps.

The deal is targeted to some 2,500 locations and the intent is to drive impulse buys inside the stores through screens at or very near cash.

“We believe GoGo Cast’s product can enhance our customers’ shopping experience while building greater customer loyalty for our dealers,” says Ron Sabia, Gulf Oil president and COO.

GoGo says it is doing a selective rollout based on criteria such as traffic counts and store size, but the number will roll up to 2,500. The chain actually has around 2,500 stores, so getting picky means the real number will inevitably be smaller.

The rollout has started but the pace of deployment is not locked in. “No timeline or milestones,” says David Paolo, president and CEO of GoGo Cast, “just as quickly as possible.” That’s Paolo in the snapshot above.

The pretty safe assumption is that the business model involves GoGo Cast’s taking on the capital and operating expense, with Gulf providing access and getting a revenue share. Paolo said GoGo does not disclose deal terms, so we don’t really know.

Before you make the reasonable conclusion that if there’s anyone that can afford to bankroll a digital screen deployment it’s an oil company, bear in mind Gulf is a gas retailer (not an oil company like Exxon) and is actually a subsidiary of Cumberland Farms, a New England convenience store group. Gas retailers are not the guys printing money when the barrel price is $100 or more.

GoGo Cast’s actual installed footprint for its networks, including Gulf, is about 400 around the US Northeast.