Urination and Clever Advertising

I woke up early, put on some warm clothes and headed to “The Terrace” to get some breakfast with a good friend before she left for Santa Barbara to finish the degree she’s always wanted. Big “shout out” to her for that — it’s never too late people. After the meal, which was lousy (I recently became sorta vegan, I still eat fish; eating breakfast out now demands creativity, which I lack at 9am on a Sunday), I made my way to the restroom to shake off some OJ.

This is what I saw framed above the toilet:

Never in my life have I been so intellectually stimulated whilst taking a piss.

I came home and surfed on over to their place among the tubes: http://www.insiteadvertising.com/

Their site is ugly and they have a shitty flash intro with rockin’ music. But hey, it just goes to show you — great advertising is determined by what one can do, not what one looks like…right? Still, get rid of the flash intros unless you’re strictly a multimedia company — even then, it should be a portfolio intro, not a site intro.

Apparently they’ve been advertising in US restrooms since ‘97 and are responsible for the sudden urge to buy Amstel Light after visiting a bar urinal. I guess they keep the clever ads for themselves.

Making it better

I was thinking about how this could help online businesses and here are some things I came up with:

• go scouting in your neighborhood and see if there are any local bars, restaurants, etc. that will let you do essentially the same thing, but for cheap, some sort of exchange or better yet, free.
• instead of just putting up a clever ad above the urinals, why not surround the frame with your business cards or coupons for your products and services.
• put up a suggestion box and offer weekly/monthly prizes — ask a question that relates to your business and have people fill out their suggestions along with their email address — could make for some awesome ideas from bars. Either way, by the end of the month, you’ll have quite a few more email addresses to add to your collection. You could really go crazy with the whole “restaurant” thing and have the prize be, “One lucky winner will receive a free dinner for up to 5 people.” Who doesn’t want a free dinner? And, by making it mandatory to leave a suggestion and not just an email address, you can be sure that they at least have some interest in the product or service you’re advertising — even if they don’t, this will subconsciously make sure that they will. ;o)

Anyone have any other ideas?

Image credit: Daquella manera.