New media network helping South Africa solve the cigarette butt problem.

The Ideal outdoor advertising opportunity, brilliant!

It is no new theory that capturing a consumer’s attention in this day and age is becoming an ever-increasingly difficult task. Television viewers can now simply fast-forward through advertisements thanks to PVR, and radio listeners often change the station. It is a wonder then that many advertisers choose to keep using traditional mass media as a means of communication. Sure, the audience reach is high, but what about retention? Those viewers who may stay tuned in often day-dream right through the advertisement, cognisant only that the radio or television is in fact on. The age of complacent, stone-age advertising is over – is it not? Now, I know that this has all been said before but what baffles me is that there are so few marketers grasping at those little hidden treasures, those niches that exist out there. One such little treasure is Ash n Ad. This clever medium is not only affective but it is environmentally conscious too; and at a time when the debate of accountability in the marketing arena is rife, is this not the best time to collaborate and show your green side while simultaneously maximising your advertising potential? Ash n Ad provides Ashtray receptacles to property owners as a means of combating excess litter caused by cigarette butts – this especially now that the new smoking legislation in South Africa is forcing more and more smokers outdoors. Each ashtray is made from weather resistant, rust proof and powder coated steel and can hold up to 300 cigarette butts. What’s in it for you? Each ashtray is cleverly designed to hold one A4 size print advertisement that is slotted into a separate and protected front area of the ashtray. Now, if this were simply a mathematical equation we could deduce that, in a small business setting for instance, if 37 people in the office smoke on average 8 cigarettes a day, and each cigarette takes around 7 minutes smoke, that is 7 minutes, multiplied by 8 cigarettes, which totals 56 minutes. This means that each smoker is exposed to the advertisement for a total of 56 minutes a day. And this is just for the light smokers. The math aside, let’s look at the cognitive implications. Most advertisements on television or radio last around 30 seconds. The kind of cognitive processing, unless the advertisement is truly mind-blowing, is superficial and consumers absorb hardly anything from ads like these anymore. What is so great about Ash n Ad is that the extended period of exposure makes the level of cognition and the physical in-take of the message much more profound. It is time to start to rethink marketing communication media which seems to have become increasingly polar – either advertise via mass media, or search desperately for some extravagant guerrilla or ambient campaign. Using and leveraging clever and effective media such as Ash n Ad is surely a no-brainer.

Try it out for yourself and we’ll see who is top of mind at the end of the day.

For more information visit www.ashnad.co.za.