Deccan Chronicle 11.08.2009
Ads on petty shops, carts gain ground
Chennai, Aug. 10: In a city devoid of hoardings, advertisers go to petty shops and pushcart laundries to place their ads. Advertisers choose pushcart laundries close to high-rise apartments and petty shops in street corners to reach their target audience.
“I never thought that this pushcart laundry would ever fetch me a few thousand rupees at one go. I earned Rs 3,000 plus three tin sheets to cover my workplace,” said Shankaran, owner of a pushcart laundry in Kodambakkam. His mobile laundry is now bedecked with ads for a DTH service. Moideen, a petty shop owner in Anna Nagar road, is happy, he said, “A cellular phone service marketing team offered some money to put up their flexi-board advertisement on our rooftop.”
“The lack of hoardings in the city made us look for alternative spaces. We selected hundreds of mobile iron vehicles closer to residential areas in the city to start our campaign,” said a senior marketing executive with a DTH service.
The cellular service operator chose even automobile mechanic sheds to display its advertisements. “We even put up miniature hoardings on private buildings to reach out to a cross-section of Chennaiites,” said a senior ad executive.
While the Chennai corporation is on a beautification spree cleaning up walls and banning hoardings, some corporate companies are signing up to be part of the beautification drive to get visibility.
