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ATM advertising makes strange bedfellows. Case in point: A recent two-month campaign for Compaq Computer Corporation, which ran on some 1,700 ATMs in Chicago, Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Houston and Washington D.C., brought together behemoths like EDS and Wells Fargo with ISOs driving under a hundred machines. The deal was brokered by ATM Advertising Inc., a Baltimore-based sales agency that works with deployers across the country -- both banks and independents -- to piece together ATM networks that offer advertisers the critical mass they crave. That task is especially tough because of the fragmented nature of ATM ownership. Mike Szimanski, ATM Advertising Inc. president, worked with some of the industry's biggest players yet still had to scramble to get the necessary locations. "It's an uphill battle, getting the saturation you want in the areas you want," he said. The challenge is even greater with ISOs, agreed Gary Walston, president of Dallas-based ATM Advertising Solutions Inc., another firm that helps connect advertisers with ATM deployers. ISOs have lower-volume machines that, unfortunately, are scattered everywhere," Walston said. "It's difficult to sell even 500 of those machines on a national basis because they're just not concentrated enough. There's no real demographic associated with it." On the same team The job is made easier, Szimanski noted, because of the "tremendous cooperation" among ISOs and other deployers who seem willing to put aside competitive differences to promote the concept of ATM advertising. "Banks are on board with the ISOs now," Szimanski said. "With some ISOs, their ability to meet the obligations of the advertiser meets or at least parallels that of the biggest banks." The ad agency "usually doesn't care who owns the ATMs," he stressed. "They care about the location, the ability to service them and delivery of the message." According to Szimanski, that cooperation extends to ATM advertising specialists like himself, Walston, Calabasas, Calif.-based brandATM. and Coral Gables, Fla. based InterActive Touch Marketing Inc. "We're as much about supporting the media as about making the sale," he said. "Anyone that makes a sale, it's good for the industry." Another challenge is technology -- or lack of it. While some deployers drive machines with high-powered processors and megs of memory to burn, others run far more basic units. Some networks were able to remotely download the Compaq campaign to a large number of ATMs, while others required visits to each machine with a CD. Doing the math Perhaps the biggest challenge of all is driving down the cost per thousand impressions, the bottom line of any advertising campaign. Szimanski defined a "typical" ATM owner as an ISO with a machine doing 300 transactions a month. That ISO might expect to receive $50 a month per machine to participate in an advertising program -- a conservative amount, considering that he will likely share ad revenue with his merchant "landlord." At $50, the advertiser's cost per thousand impressions is $150 for that "typical" machine. That compares to a cost per thousand of $6 to $40 for billboards, the Internet or other tried-and-tested media. "It's a reality, and a hard one," Szimanski said, "but those small guys can't be left out. They're too key and in too many areas." A related issue is how many ATM impressions "count" toward the total. Some believe that one transaction is one impression because it involves just one customer. Others counter that ATM users see the welcome screen, the "please wait" screen and a receipt, all carrying the advertising message. The Compaq campaign, for example, featured full-color screen ads, reinforced with either full-color or black and white receipts. The ads appeared on the "welcome" screen, during the "please wait" period and, in some cases, both. The debate gets even fuzzier when one includes messages that can be seen and heard by passersby, not just by ATM users. Good ink ATMs fall under the category of "out of home" advertising, which includes billboards, bus and taxi wraps and signage at sports arenas. According to Advertising Age, Compaq relied heavily on outdoor media, even hiring an airplane to fly over Wall Street. The unusual campaign, which featured the slogan "24x7xCompaq," earned ink in Ad Age and other industry trade publications. That type of coverage helps advance the cause of ATM advertising, Walston said. "It may be naive on my part, but I think once more articles are published in Ad Age or Ad Week, the interest level from advertisers will snowball." The hardest sell on the viability of the medium is to advertising agencies, Szimanski said. He gave DDB Needham, the New York agency that designed Compaq's campaign, credit for helping to sell its client on the concept of ATM advertising. That's not always easy when an idea is "new, a little offbeat and not cheap," he said. "We're grateful for all the buyers trying to sell ATMs to their clients. They're putting their butts on the line for us."