Gail Chiasson, North American Editor
We heard last week that Chris Polos had returned to VeriFone Media Solutions recently, and finally caught up to him for a short interview.
Polos, who earlier headed VeriFone Media out of New York under the title of vice-president sales, left the company two years ago to become senior vice-president operations for Simulmedia, a startup, data-driven TV company focused on targeting audiences.
“I always loved Taxi Media and was always talking about it, even at Simulmedia,” said Polos, VeriFone’s new vice-president Taxi Media, explaining why he was attracted back to his first love. At VeriFone he will be dealing with strategy and expansion and will be responsible for the sales team.
“I’ll be doing a lot of evangelizing, because the media market is so fragmented, but I really believe in Taxi Media,” he said. “I also believe in global expansion, and we are already looking at other possible markets.”
We mentioned to Polos that in London, VeriFone Taxi has a couple of strong competitors.
“Yes, but I believe that we have the kick, because of our technology, payment system and targeting,” he said.
While VeriFone’s in-taxi screens and payment technology are of prime importance, the company currently has 200 taxis in New York and Las Vegas (as well as quite a few in London) that have digital taxi-top advertising.
“We’ll look at expanding that, too, where it makes sense economically,” he says. “That involves considerable investment.”
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