There’s No Privacy in World of Advertising
The medium is the message. Or: Advertising at your convenience.
Think of it. A captive audience. Attention focused straight ahead. Eager for reading material.
A perfect way to hit your target (audience). A wonderful chance to expose your client.
It’s here: eye-level advertising at urinals, and on the inside of toilet-stall doors.
Maxwell Media Inc., a new ad agency in Mira Mesa, is trying to tap the heretofore untapped water closet market.
It’s called “Stall Tactics.” You peddle while they piddle.
“It’s a natural place for advertising,” explained co-owner Sandra Maxwell. “You can count on having people’s attention anywhere from 10 seconds to a minute. You can do a lot of selling in that time.”
This being San Diego County, naturally, the desired market is the upscale, car-buying, real-estate-buying, gadget-buying crowd, male and female.
The trick is to match the right product with the right lookie-loo.
It’s called selective demographics. Restaurants and nightspots are the locations of choice.
Thusly, beach apparel/surf gear at Club Diego in Pacific Beach, a Lexus car dealership at Paparazzi in La Jolla, cellular phones at Epazote’s in Del Mar, a foreign car repair shop at the Triton in Cardiff.
Also, spread out in North County: Samsonite, Merrill Lynch, Dow Corning and Budweiser.
(All you wise guys can forget it. There are no plans to put bail bond ads in biker bars or rolling paper ads in reggae hangouts.)
The ads are a Midwestern idea (Maxwell and her husband, Tom, are from Minneapolis) that has only recently migrated to Southern California.
The ads are letter size (8 1/2-by-11), full-color and sealed behind glass. Four to six ads per space; market surveys say the more ads, the more likely that people will retain the pitch.
Word of the restroom ads was relayed by a tipster who saw them at Cilantro’s in Rancho Santa Fe.
A real stand-up guy.
Gone, Like the Old West
Mobley Meadows Milam is looking for a few good guns: family six-shooters stolen from his Sunset Cliffs home in a recent burglary.
The 66-year-old attorney and former federal prosecutor hopes a pawnbroker or swap meet devotee will notice the historic pieces: a Civil War-era Remington (serial No. 86543) and a turn-of-the-century Smith & Wesson (serial No. B-178470).
The Remington was owned by Milam’s great-grandfather John Meadows (1828-1882), teacher, preacher, wagon-trail boss and sheriff of Tulare County.
The Smith & Wesson belonged to Milam’s grandfather Mobley Meadows (1875-1915), the legendary sheriff of Imperial County whose statue still graces the county fairgrounds outside El Centro.
“I’ll probably get around $1,000 from the insurance company, but I’d much rather have the guns back,” Milam said.
Luckily, the thief missed some heirlooms. Like the (supposed) scalp of the Indian who killed John Meadows in the Arizona uprising known as Meadows’ Massacre.
“Thank God the burglar didn’t get that,” Milam said.
I went out to take a look. He wasn’t kidding.
Betting Everything to Win
Words, words, words.
* How eager are the Japanese to win the America’s Cup?
Banner at the base camp in Tokyo of Nippon, the 12-meter yacht that 30 Japanese companies are preparing for the 1992 race off San Diego: “There Is No Second.”
* North County bumper sticker: “I’m a Lover, Fighter and Wild Bull Rider.”
* Headline in the San Francisco Chronicle assessing Pete Wilson’s image problem: “Not Just a Bland White Guy.”
* The first Coronado Eagle, a new twice-monthly newspaper, hits the stands today. It’s the work of Dean Eckenroth, former publisher of the Coronado Journal.
* Pacific Beach dude to tourist girl: “Texas? I’ve never been back East.”
