Mainstream advertising has long been viewed as unkind to startup ventures, as its high advertising rates literally price the fledgling advertisers out of the market. Thankfully for startup SMEs, however, there are now three alternative advertising models to help them compete with their deep-pursed competitors: transit ads, placemat advertising, and SMS advertising.

For just a fraction of the cost of a traditional tri-media advertising campaign, these alternative advertising models are being touted as capable of generating as much buzz for a product or service as their mainstream counterparts.

The people behind these new advertising models concede that they are not about to replace tri-media yet as the advertising modes of choice, but they insist that these advertising models can provide a viable alternative for cost-conscious businesses.

TRANSIT ADS
Transit ads, otherwise known as transport ads, target the ever-growing number of commuters that take public transport. These ads usually come in the form of liquid crystal display (LCD) advertising pitches mounted on buses, trains, and taxicabs; wrap-around posters on the bodies of buses, trains, and passenger jeepneys; and signboards on the roof of passenger jeepneys and taxicabs.

Aside from offering a mobile presence for the product or service being advertised, they can reach a wide-ranging target audience across almost all of the demographic classes.

One company that specializes in transport ads is LG7 Advertising. This Metro Manila-based company, which went into this business in September 2008, expects a growing demand for transport ads due to the heavy clutter in billboards and the severe congestion of ad placements in the traditional advertising media.

Says Filemon Vargas, chief operating officer of LG7 Advertising: "The use of transport ads is a trend that's growing globally. This is because they are cheaper and a more effective form of outdoor advertising. They are more dynamic than other advertising media because they are always on the move. And as countries put more premium to the conservation of space, I believe that the use of billboards for outdoor advertising will fall."

Vargas says that a typical six-month bus ad campaign offered by LG7 Advertising costs anywhere from P20,000 to P40,000 a month per bus, compared to P135,000 a month in the case of traditional billboards. LG7 wraps the exteriors of the bus with images of the advertiser's products and services. To run an effective bus ad campaign, Vargas says, the advertiser needs at least five buses as compared to at least three billboards for a billboard campaign.

He explains the advantage of a bus ad campaign: "If you compare the prices, a six-month bus ad campaign will cost P900,000 against P2.4 million for a comparable billboard campaign. This is a huge difference. The target audience is basically the same, but since a bus ad is mobile, potentially more people will get to see it than a billboard."

PLACEMAT ADVERTISING
Placemat ads are a relatively new form of advertising wherein the advertiser pays to have its logos and advertising messages printed on placemats used by food establishments. A relatively cheap form of advertising, it aims to get its message across to its target audiences during the waiting time for diners to get served in restaurants.

The Antipolo City-based Placem'ad Inc., which specializes in placemat ads, says the medium is a very cost-effective and localized way of advertising for startups. Mavic Relayson, its business development manager, explains: "The majority of our clients are suburban SMEs based in Antipolo that want to disseminate their messages in a more localized way. We target restaurants and food establishments where our clients have potential customers."

According to Relayson, a 2.8 inch x 2.4 inch placemat ad costs as low as P2,900 inclusive of full-color printing for 10,000 pieces. The company does the design as well as the logo and brand executions for clients that don't have them yet, then handles the distribution of the placemats to the preselected food establishments.

"Our services can be beneficial to startups and established businesses alike," says Relayson. "Right now, we are serving BPI Family Bank, Reyes Barbecue, and Aqua Polo, among others. We believe that placemat ads are both cheaper and more effective than flyers because they are more targeted, more focused. A lot of times, people just throw flyers away without reading them. In contrast, placemats are necessities in restaurants. People often have no choice but to look at them."

SMS ADVERTISING
The third alternative advertising model now in use is short message service (SMS) advertising, and among the companies that offer it is the local Web solutions firm Technominds Inc. The company has come up with TextCast, an SMS-based advertising service that enables advertisers to send ads to multiple consumers through text messages.

Alvin Tan, president and CEO of Technominds, says that in the Philippines, text advertising is one of the simplest ways of getting your message across.  He explains: "Almost all people in the country have mobile phones, and they use it for most of the day. It's a huge market, and because SMS usage is universal, it cuts across so many demographic markets."

He says that for a minimum credit purchase of P1,000 of SMS advertising, Technominds will send 1,250 text messages to the cellular phones of individuals listed in the consumer database provided by the advertiser. For an additional fee, Technominds plans to roll out next year a master list of consumer targets that businesses can reach with their advertising messages.

"At the moment, we are targeting big companies for this service," Tan says. "They are the ones that can benefit directly from this form of advertising because they have more product offerings and promotional campaigns. However, SMEs can also benefit from this service because it's relatively cheap, and the SMS medium gives them a huge potential market they can use to grow their business."

In 2008, Technominds received the Nokia Mobile Entrepreneur Award in recognition of the huge success of its D-Loads, a Web-based prepaid reloading service for mobile phones. With its TextCast service, Technominds hopes to replicate the success of its D-Loads reloading platform.

"We plan to come up with more Web-based mobile phone solutions in 2009, specifically targeting small businesses," Tan says. "With the success of D-Loads and hopefully also of TextCast, we can develop the leverage to build more and cheaper as well as more effective platforms for our customers and distributors."

Contact Details:
LG7 ADVERTISING
14/F Net Cube Center Bldg.,
Bonifacio Global City, Taguig City
Telephone: (02) 479-5468

PLACEM'AD INC.
Rooms 303-304 FEMAR Building, ML Quezon St., Antipolo City
Telephone: (02) 994-8320 

Website: www.placemad.com

TECHNOMINDS INC.
Unit 2502-D East Tektite Tower, Philippine Stock Exchange Centre
Exchange Road, Ortigas Center, Pasig City
Telephone: (02) 631-0713

Website: www.d-loads.com