A pioneer in the electric mobility industry
Nowadays, people want to be able to charge their electric cars at places where they already spend time, such as hotels, sports clubs, movie theaters, and the office. Revolt provides smart, all-in-one charging solutions to businesses at locations like these—enabling them to offer EV charging services to their visitors or employees without the need to make a large investment. Instead, Revolt takes responsibility for the investment, as well as the installation and maintenance of the charging stations, in exchange for a monthly subscription fee or one-time payment.
Offering Revolt as a subscription-based service makes sense for a number of reasons. “[During the pandemic,] we saw that the occupancy rate of charging stations was getting lower because everybody needs to work from home,” says Jeroen van de Ven, Revolt’s Co-founder. “That’s why we thought: okay, how can we make our revenue model robust so that when these kinds of things happen, we’re not overly reliant on charging costs? So it was a little bit inspired by the pandemic, and also finding a revenue model that can add value and create value for our customers, for EV drivers who charge their cars at our stations, and for Revolt as a company.”
By simplifying the installation process and shouldering most of the upfront investment and ongoing maintenance costs, Revolt is facilitating the creation of additional, smarter charging infrastructure—something that will be crucial to ensuring the Netherlands meets its aggressive climate goals. Already, fleets are already becoming more sustainable at a rapid pace and PwC predicts that there will be more than 1.9 million electric cars in the country by 2030. With their easy and affordable charging solutions for businesses, Revolt is contributing to the radical transition needed to bring sustainable mobility into the future.
Turning EV chargers into a powerful communication tool with DOOH
After validating Revolt’s charging subscription service with installations at a number of businesses throughout the Netherlands and Belgium, the company is now focusing on a truly innovative addition to their EV charging stations: an integrated digital out-of-home media offering. The company currently has 20 active charging stations with DOOH-enabled screens, with plans to expand to the rest of Europe—and triple the size of their DOOH network—by the end of this year.
The inspiration for adding DOOH advertising to their charging stations wasn’t a random thought. Members of Revolt’s leadership team come from digital marketing and technology backgrounds, and van de Ven says they were inspired by “the fragmentation of digital channels, consumer behaviour, and advertising.” With the impending demise of third-party cookies, it’s become increasingly difficult for brands to reach their target audience across channels and as they go about their daily lives. Revolt’s charging stations are placed in high-traffic locations where they have the potential to be seen by a large number of EV drivers, climate-conscious consumers and other passers-by. “With our media proposition, you’re reaching the same audience, the audience you want to reach, and you’re making an impact because your message has been seen in a sustainable and climate-conscious context.”
The additional revenue generated from DOOH advertising allows Revolt to offer its EV charging service at a lower cost, while the digital signage brings additional value to the businesses that host the chargers. “From their perspective, I think you can do a lot of amazing stuff with digital out-of-home,” says van de Ven. “For hotels, for example, you don’t have to wait for someone to come to reception. If you put the charging station with a display on it, you can start talking to your customers with digital messaging when they’re still in the parking garage.”
In short, businesses that host Revolt’s EV chargers with built-in screens can leverage DOOH to offset their charging service costs and also gain a powerful communication tool for guests, customers, and employees.
Partnering with Broadsign to expand their reach
In order to meet its aggressive expansion goals, Revolt needed to invest in scalable technology that could maximize potential ad revenue and help support its growth. Broadsign’s industry-leading digital signage platform came highly recommended and offered the ease-of-use they were looking for.
“That was the most important thing: easy to use, easy to manage campaigns and the network,” says van de Ven. “Not having to think about the functionality, or the CMS, so we can concentrate on delivering the promise of DOOH to our customers.”
In addition to using Broadsign Control to automate their network’s content management and delivery, Revolt has started selling DOOH ad space on their EV charging network programmatically with Broadsign Reach. The leadership team’s prior experience in digital marketing meant they were already familiar with the process, and power, of programmatic ad selling. However, the process of building a programmatic DOOH campaign is different from what most people are used to online. A programmatic SPP specifically built for DOOH, like Broadsign Reach, leverages automation to generate new revenue programmatically and opens your network up to targeted campaigns from around the globe. Since implementing Broadsign Reach at the end of last year, Revolt has already found success complementing their direct sales with highly-targeted programmatic transactions.
“More and more, I’m convinced we made a good choice when we rolled out Broadsign Reach in Q4 of last year,” says van de Ven. “Moving forward, I believe our inventory will be a very healthy mix of direct sales that we generate campaigns from, partnerships with our existing customer base, and sales generated by the programmatic use of our network through Broadsign Reach.”
As Revolt continues to expand its network of digital EV charging stations, Broadsign’s DOOH solutions will provide them with the capabilities and insights they need to optimize their ad revenue at scale. And as they continue to enhance their EV charging media offering and incorporate new data sources, Broadsign’s platform can also connect Revolt’s DOOH network with external sensors, data feeds, analytics platforms, and even EV charging station software—opening the door to exciting new creative and campaign targeting possibilities.
“We purchased the Rolls Royce of digital signage software and are currently driving it on a bicycle lane—so I think we chose the right tool, with opportunities that we haven’t even discovered yet,” says van de Ven. “With Broadsign, we have a platform that we can build on for the future.”
