Kurt,

I like both the placemat and the gasoline pump idea. How clever. Both are introduced in high traffic areas and represent thinking "outside the box." However, think back to your coop advertising. Do you have a way to measure its effectiveness? Are you including a landing page link in your portion of the ad? What happens after the ad has run in the publication? Do you get a PDF of the entire ad? If not, ask for one. Chances are the newspaper will gladly give it to you - especially if all the other advertisers also request it. Afterall, if the coop ad takes up a full page in the paper, you own that page - not the newspaper. So, you have a right to request it and the newspaper I believe has a responsibility to provide it to you. But, here's what's neat. If you have a PDF of the ad, and own Adobe Acrobat, you can restructure the entire ad to benefit you specifically and post it elsewhere online - in many cases absolutely FREE!

Below is a actual layout for what is called a signature business page. The small rectangles are reservced for business card size ads. The one large space is for an advertorial. Note that the small rectangular spaces cost $88 each. What does the one large space cost? It's free. However, I could decide to own the entire page. If I did, I would reduce all the small ad spaces by 50% and charge 50% of the retail cost of the one advertorial space to a high profile business that wanted it at a 50% discount. After the ad ran in the newspaper and everyone got the PDF, I would encourage each advertiser to rework the ad using Adobe Acrobat placing themselves in the advertorial space and positing various places online for free.

Keep in mind that when you share a PDF picture which has links in it online, those links are active. Therefore, each link in each ad could be a landing page - a measuring device to let you know if someone is actually paying attention to your advertising effort.

Private Reply to Lamar Morgan 954-603-7901 (new win)