A new marketing strategy has reached Phnom Penh’s streets, enabling companies to introduce their products on a moving TV screen.

New Color Communications, a company started by Kim Seong Bomb, instals TV screens on the back of tuk-tuks that show a series of one-minute advertisement clips.    

“I had the idea when I was driving behind a tuk-tuk,” Kim said. Having seen big advertisement screens on the streets, he thought this could also be effective on the back of the popular vehicles.

After getting permission from the Ministry of Commerce in March, Kim started the project in July, signing contracts with 15 clients including micro-finance instit-utions, internet companies and tourist agencies.

Each clip will be shown 1200 times during one month.

Phnom Penh has 10 tuk-tuks with the screens, but Kim plans to equip 30 vehicles by November and eventually expand to Sihanoukville and Siem Reap, with the aim of having a total of 250 advertising tuk tuks.

Kim, who grew up in Korea and came to Cambodia three and a half years ago, said tuk tuk drivers are interested in the project as they can also benefit. “It can attract more customers because the tuk tuk looks different from others,” he said.

Ya Soksor, one of the tuk-tuk drivers with a new colour TV screen on their vehicle, said he had more customers after setting up the screen because people were interested in it.

Jenny Andersson, CEO of YourPhnomPenh.com, said this form of advertising could work because it creates attention, but a study had found that tuk-tuks did not seem to be the most effective option for advertisements.

It found that mostly people who already had a company and advertised on tuk-tuks themselves, would notice other tuk-tuks signs.

Andersson said that although this was just a guess, she did not know how long tuk-tuks were going to exist in Phnom Penh, adding that the city might even follow Bangkok or Saigon, where tuk-tuks are not used any more.

To contact the reporter on this story: Anne Renzenbrink at [email protected]