Startup Idea - Marketplace for Unconventional Advertising

The Problem – Limited advertising options and increasing advertising budgets have led to steep rises in advertising rates of these options. This has affected the return advertisers can get on their advertising spend, at times making it unreasonable for them to do so.

The Solution/Startup Idea – A marketplace connecting sources of unconventional advertising with potential advertisers. This includes adverts in places like gyms, hotels, salons, educational campuses, residential areas etc.

Rationale – A host of unconventional advertising sources exist which are largely untapped. Tapping these would tend to bring down the advertising costs of advertisers, help them target better and also generate additional revenue of vendors of these new advertisement options.

Target Market –

Customers – Advertisers (especially local businesses, SMEs etc.); New vendors of advertisements (local options like gyms, schools, hotels, salons, spas etc. and online options like blogs, personal websites).

Geography – Global (launch can be in a particular city/country)

Current Competition – This unconventional advertising market is still untapped.

Competitive Advantage – The market is largely untapped. A first mover advantage can prove to be a significant competitive advantage. Also the volume and quality of the data will create barriers to entry in the future.

Free Ways to Promote Your Startup

There are a lot of ways to get free promotion, especially in the early days of your startup. I have used the following for my previous startups.

Blogs - You can write to bloggers who write about stuff which is relevant. If your story is compelling enough, you might get a free publish.

Social Media - Great way to reach out to new people and build visibility.

Emails - You can send limited emails through your email account. You may have some data with you which you can use for this. Also various online email services exist which allow you to send upto a particular number of emails totally free of charge.

Classifieds - The basic posting service on most classifieds sites is free.

Videos - Make some videos explaining about your product. Posting on video hosting sites is free and tends to help in building visibility and also in getting better search engine rankings.

Startup Model – Next Generation Mobile Advertising

THE MODEL: A programmatic sensory advertising platform which creates and distributes advertising messages which using mobile technologies to engage people’s senses.

STARTUP: Adludio (British startup)

WHAT I LIKE

Core Idea – A next generation mobile advertising platform which aims to touch people’s senses.

Benefits to Users – Businesses use sensory advertising to increase engagement and hence get a better return on advertising spend.

Mobile First Technologies – The startup uses technologies such as 3d, haptic, gyro, touch to engage customers for different brands. Some examples include Impact (using creative optimization and video enhancement), Touch (using touch to deliver messages), Swipe, Vibrate & Shake (using movements to engage customers) and 3D (for better user experience).

CONCERNS

Competition – The Adtech space is a very competitive one with a host of startups offering different features to acquire customers.

The De Beers Story – Creating & Manipulating Demand

A lot of us believe that De Beers’ success story is based on the fact that it controls supply. However, the company has unlocked greater value for itself through it’s marketing campaign through which it has managed to create a permanent aspirational demand for a product which basically had no demand earlier.

The ‘a diamond is forever’ campaign was launched in 1914. The aim of the campaign was to connect the product, which basically is a commodity, with feelings of love and commitment. The campaign was able to do just that and the diamond became the symbol of love and the standard stone to be used in any engagement ring. The impact of the campaign was so strong that the trend is prevalent even today and is showing no signs of any change going forward as well. In fact, the diamond is now a standard gifting stone for occasions such as anniversaries, birthdays etc. as well.

What De Beers was able to do was to move its product out of a zone where people value it based on pure supply-demand factors and into one where the core demand and value comes from human emotion and aspiration.

Nailing Celebrity Advertising

Using celebrities in advertisements has become very common nowadays. Be it for television, radio or newspaper advertisements or for product launches, brands are spending huge amounts of money on getting the biggest celebrities to advertise for them.

Celebrities have a reach and a brand associated to them. Companies want to connect their brand to the brand of these celebrities so that the reach and impact of their advertising messages becomes higher. When 2 brands combine, it has an additive effect. However, to ensure that the effect is maximum, the brands should be complementary so that a synergy can be created. If brands with different attributes combine, very less value is created. For example, I recently saw a popular Indian actress advertising for a residential real estate project. I simply don’t understand why.

A good example of a brand nailing celebrity advertising is Puma. The brand signed an endorsement deal with the football legend, Pele, for the 1970 World Cup. First of all, this was a good fit as the brand and the celebrity have common attributes, sports and fitness. Puma also came up with an ingenious hack to get its message across. Part of their deal involved Pele intentionally asking for time at the beginning of every match to tie his shoelaces. When he did, the cameras would automatically pan down to see what he was doing and would end up highlighting his Puma shoes.