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11/13/07 - Ads working to earn their stripes in lots
Date: November 13, 2007
Section: Business
By: Paul Beebe
The Salt Lake Tribune
Advertisers are always trying new ways to speak to shoppers, especially in spots where consumers have nowhere else to look. Hence the arrival of ads in elevators, bathroom stalls and movie theaters. Now there's a new place to advertise, and if you park in either of The Gateway's parking garages in Salt Lake City, it's right at your feet.
A Sandy company, Alden Keene Outdoor Advertising, has installed ads for Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. on 1,700 adhesive stripes pasted over the painted lines that mark off 1,700 parking spaces in the two garages.
"This is advertising that you cannot miss. You step out of the car and boom, there it is," Alden Keene owner Paul Jones said Tuesday.
The stripes made of white, slightly reflective vinyl material were put in place about two weeks ago. Printed on them are Nationwide's "life comes at you fast" slogan and a toll-free phone number to call for information about the company's auto and home insurance policies.
Salt Lake is one of four cities where Ohio-based Nationwide is running stripe ads. Utah's capital was selected because Nationwide wants to beef up its market share here. Because the campaign is only a few months old, it's too soon to say that the stripes are bringing in new customers. Still, early results are promising, said Nationwide spokesman Mike Switzer.
"Anecdotally, our agents are telling us they are experiencing an increase in inquiries that coincides with the installation of the parking stripes. Clearly, it's catching people off guard," Switzer said.
Bryn Ramjoue, president of B Strategic, a Salt Lake advertising and brand management agency, agrees. She says the stripes are a "brilliant" guerilla marketing concept. They catch consumers in an "uncluttered environment" inside the garage where the only other messages are parking and exit signs.
"If I'm Nationwide and I'm talking to a consumer who is in a situation where they are interacting with their car, it is relevant . . . and the relevance is part of the brilliance," Ramjoue said.
Stripe ads are the brainchild of Greg Gordon, a former brand manager for Anheuser-Busch whose projects include the TV commercials featuring Budweiser frogs and football-playing Clydesdales. In 2003, Gordon and his marketing team were brainstorming ideas around a table in Golden, Colo. He looked out a window and thought he could turn the lines in the parking lot into an advertising medium.
Gordon went on to set up Parking Stripe Advertising. Today, the company's clients include ABC, Halliburton Energy and Qwest Communications, said Becky Osborne, Parking Stripe's president.
"Nationwide wanted to increase awareness that there was another possible choice for insurance. So they felt like parking stripes would be a good medium to do that because it's new and different and it cuts through the clutter of advertising," Osborne said.
It's also cheap advertising. Each stripe costs Nationwide about $40. They will be in place until the end of the month at The Gateway, which also gets a cut.
"We've done some testing and some surveys and found that 92 percent of everyone we spoke with liked the idea of stripes. Eighty percent recalled the message, so those stats tell us these are ads that truly are reaching the consumer," said Osborne, whose firm contracted with Alden Keen for the Salt Lake City job. It wasn't too long ago that most advertising reached customers via newspapers, television and radio. But with the rise of the Internet, VCRs, TiVo and other technologies, pitching products has compelled advertisers to push the envelope, Switzer said.
"TV, billboards, radio, wherever you turn, it's not hard to find a financial service ad. So how do you cut through that clutter?" Switzer said.
"This fit into our strategy of trying to stand out from the pack and differentiate our message."
* ABC TELEVISION used parking stripes in New York and California to advertise the 2007 season of "Desperate Housewives."
* HALLIBURTON ENERGY provided stripes for the Komen Race for the Cure campaign against breast cancer.
* QWEST COMMUNICATIONS wanted stripes installed at shopping malls in Colorado, New Mexico, Washington and California to drive consumers to nearby sales kiosks.
Caption:
Photo: Alden Keene Outdoor Advertising of Sandy installed ads for Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. on 1,700 adhesive stripes in the two garages at The Gateway in Salt Lake City. The ads have been in place two weeks.
(c) 2007 The Salt Lake Tribune. All rights reserved. Reproduced with the permission of Media NewsGroup, Inc. by NewsBank, Inc.
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