10/05/07 - Free parking spaces become more valuable

By EILEEN STILWELL
Courier-Post Staff

CHERRY HILL

Joanne Solometa hesitated to steer her van into the ShopRite parking space between crisp white lines that were covered with black writing because she thought it was off-limits. Close enough to read the message, she laughed out loud.

"Parking for desperate housewives. Hey, that's me. How did they know?" joked the Cherry Hill working mom. Solometa is not alone these days chuckling her way into the former Stop & Shop at the intersection of Brace and Haddonfield-Berlin roads. The parking stripe is actually an advertisement for the popular television swho on ABC Sundays at 9 p.m., which also appeared in smaller type on the stripe. Still, it's getting high marks from shoppers. "Very creative even though I'm not a fan of the show," said Samatha Akan, of Cherry Hill as she was packing her 2-year-old daughter into a car seat. "We're so inundated with eye-level signs, we don't see them anymore. These are new and very noticeable," said Michelle Brown of Camden on a cat food run. Ron Brenner, a motivational speaker from Cherry Hill, questioned whether consumers will find the stripes "as cute and clever" when they're pitching toothpaste or legal services. Just when you think all the brilliant ideas to make money in a hurry are exhausted, somebody finds a new way, he said. The Cherry Hill parking lot is one of 20 sites in New York, New Jersey and Los Angeles to be striped with "Desperate Housewives" advertising "to build buzz among female viewers for the fourth season premiere of the show," said Jodi Smith, vice president of public relations for Alloy Media + Marketing, a national firm that hired Parking Stripe Advertising of Denver to do the job. "We work with a lot of companies that do cool things. This seemed like a novel idea. It catches people's attention yet doesn't interfere with their experience. We're talking food shopping here. The reaction so far has been fun and that's what we're looking for," said Smith. Rebecca Osborne, president of Parking Stripe Advertising, said the 3-year-old business is growing rapidly because it taps an unused source of income and it can be target-specific. At ShopRite, for example, her company sells, installs and maintains stripes for 30 days at $30 to $40 a stripe, with a minimum of 250 stripes per venue for Alloy. It also pays a fee to Kimco Realty Corp., which owns the Cherry Hill shopping center. Alloy supplies the language and ABC logo on the stripe, and bills ABC. Given the American love affair with cars, the possibilities are endless. "What better place to reach 18- to 34-year-old males than a stadium parking lot? Mercedes dealers might want to stripe up-scale malls. You can't TiVo parking stripes. On the other hand, public schools might start looking at their parking lots as another source of revenue," said Osborne. Other notable customers so far include United Airlines, All State Insurance, Halliburton Corp. and Coors. While the business has that "Why didn't I think of that" quality, Osborne said it is not as easy as it looks. Perfecting the materials and creating dialogue with major media buyers and commercial real estate companies has consumed most of her time. In addition, the simplicity of the idea makes it too easy to duplicate, so getting trademarks in order was key before ramping up the business. Made in China, the stripes are 18.5 feet long by five inches wide pieces of PVC vinyl. The message or digital quality image is printed on the vinyl, then laminated. The stripe is affixed to the ground with an adhesive. Theft has been a problem with the "Desperate Housewives" campaign, she said. The company is experimenting with glow-in-the-dark strips and strips that contain a sound chip so drivers may get an audio rush as soon as their feet hit the asphalt. Imagine parking your car next to an ad for Geico insurance. Foot on ground. "Hey, get off my tail," yelps the Geico gecko.

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KEY POINT
South Jersey got stripes, but not the full treatment from Manhattan-based Alloy Media + Marketing, which has staked out supermarket lots to promote "Desperate Housewives' with a vengeance. Last weekend Hollywood hunks posted themselves at supermarket exits in New York and LA offering to carry grocery bags for female shoppers. The ad agency also set up "pampering stations' in the parking lots so women could get a quick nail polish change and a massage, said Jodi Smith, vice president of public relations for Alloy Media.

Reach Eileen Stilwell at (856) 486-2464
or estilwell@courierpostonline.com

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