Interviewed By Sumaiya Siddique, MBR Team
MBR: How did the idea of Sticker Driver emerge? How much has the sticker driver grown since its inception?
Mr. Binoy Barman: Idea:
The first time the idea came to my mind was when I saw a company hosting a roadshow for a product launch. During that roadshow, they took one of my
friend’s cars for branding. My friend earned around Tk. 15,000 during that campaign. Seeing the opportunities on a bigger scale, that was the time I saw its prospects as a business.
Growth:
First, we have started the venture with just 3 cars wrapped with our ads in December 2019. Then, we had only 10 registered cars to wrap only in Dhaka City.
Now, we have 700 wrapped cars with more than 12+ clients like Square, ACI, Beximco, Alesha Mart, and many more. And we have 3500+ registered cars ready to wrap in Dhaka, Chittagong, and Sylhet. And we already have orders of more than 1000+ cars to wrap within 4 months.
Back then, we had only one option to wrap sticker ads, but right now we have options to wrap stickers outside of the cars and we have also introduced inside car branding and DOOH packages.
MBR: How does Sticker driver generate revenue?
Mr. Binoy Barman: We take payment from clients in two steps. Installation Charge and Monthly recurring charge.
Installation Charge Breakdown:
1. Permission from BRTA, DNCC, and DMP with
proper VAT TAX according to Sticker Size.
2. Printing
3. Pasting on Car
4. Driver App Training
We take a small cut from the installation charge.
Monthly Charge Breakdown:
1. Car owner/Driver’s Monthly Payment
2. Cloud Cost
We take a small cut from the monthly charge.
MBR: How do brands track their campaign through your app? Could you please elaborate on how the impression algorithm helps to derive the effectiveness of the campaign?
Mr. Binoy Barman: As a brand, you will get access to our brand dashboard and brand app. You will be able to track your wrapped car’s:
1. Position
2. Driven Distance
3. Route
4. Impression
5. Real Pictures
You will also be able to generate reports from the advertiser dashboard.
Advertiser Dashboard Demo Access:
Advertiser Dashboard Link: https://dashboard.stickerdriver.com
Username: 01717114944
Password: 1234567890
The Impression count algorithm: We take google location data and google traffic congestion data along with some other data like the fixed population density of an area, what portion are moving out in the daytime, nighttime, office time, weekend, and holidays, etc. By analysis these data we can generate the number of eyeballs a wrapped car can catch. This is the best part of our tech solutions. By these numbers, brands can calculate the CPM and
effectiveness of the campaign.
MBR: How the drivers are boarded on the platform? Could you share some obstacles you encountered while ensuring proper performance
on drivers.
Mr. Binoy Barman: Vehicle Registrations:
Driver and Car owners need to follow some terms and conditions to join our platform:
1. Built year more than the year 2000
2. Rides more than 100+ KM daily.
3. Rides more than 2500+ KM monthly.
4. Nice paint condition.
5. Willing to use our apps after wrapping.
Obstacles:
When we launched the platform, this was new for both drivers and brands. Convincing the car owners to wrap was the greatest obstacle at that time. But right now, after two years everything is clear. Some current issues with drivers:
1. Forget to use apps.
2. Forget to take weekly wrapped cars photos.
3. No smartphone uses of outside Dhaka drivers.
4. Changing of drivers of a single car.
MBR: Has the nationwide lockdown hampered your operations? What initiatives were taken to safeguard the company from such contingencies?
Mr. Binoy Barman: Lockdown hampered every business.
1. Our field operation was shut down.
2. Work orders postponed from bands.
3. No new car acquisitions.
Initiatives taken:
1. Remote tech team
2. Full salary for the team with proper bonus.
3. New product R&D during the lockdown time.
The Local Textile Industry of Bangladesh: A Signature of Our Culture
Clothing is one of the basic needs of human life for survival that comes after food but it is more than an essential requirement as it represents the uniqueness
and identity of a nation. We have represented our heritage in the global stage through Jamdani and Moslin. With passage of time, our concentration moved
towards the RMG and we, through leveraging our competitive advantage of low cost production, have secured the third position in the world.
Although it is very common to associate the RMG sector with local textile industry, RMG is different from local textile. RMG sector is engaged in manufacturing
export oriented products while the local textile holds the aim to serve the native demand.
The local textile has to go through five distinctive steps to produce the finished goods. The process starts from import of cotton, and then we move to spinning which means the production of yarn. After producing yarn we move to the next step and it is weaving where grey fabrics are produced. Then we move to the fourth step where grey fabrics move into dyeing and printing factories and finally, we step into the final stair and it is the finished goods.
The size of local textile industry is immense and its market size is of USD 7 billion dollar. Although there is a trend of duplicating the design of neighboring
countries but our local brands, for example: Yellow, Sailor, Aarong, etc. are promising and we hope that in the near future we will cater our domestic market with own distinctiveness.
Nothing is beyond challenges and limitations, and our local textile industry also has certain challenges which range from scarcity of investment to reform of existing policies. Yet, we can see a prospective future of this sector, and proper nurture of this segment will let us set our footprint in abroad as well, after fulfilling the domestic demand.
RIFAT ISHTIAQ KHAN
Manager
IDLC Finance Ltd.