A business idea (via a one minute video) which involves advertising on tea or coffee cups as a more effective way of reaching out to people/ a larger audience, instead of digital Ads was pitched on idea factory. An idea which was called 'Panora'.
According to this idea, organisations who wants their products advertised will register on Panora (app or web), select the region where they intend to advertise and Panora will do the rest by printing their adverts on tea or coffee cups while distributing it to restaurants and Cafés with a 20 Cent profit on each cup distributed.
Advertising on teacups is a very good idea depending on your target market. Unfortunately, as much as it has advantages, it also comes with disadvantages. Here's a quick review I have written based on the above.
Pros of tea cup advertising
Average television commercials last for 20 to 30 seconds, billboards barely have 5 seconds to convey its message to passers-by especially in a vehicle, and digital ads can be avoided with a simple skip button after 5 seconds. A tea or coffee cup has a higher advantage. In this case a brand exposure of a minimum of 5 to 10 minutes that no other medium can provide.
"Advertising on coffee cups gives your company an excellent opportunity to be different from others. Drinking coffee connects people. It makes them feel cosy and open minded, which means it's a perfect moment to present your message to them". Coffee cup advertising
Cons
If your target is millennials as mentioned, with a 5 to 6 second attention span as mentioned in your pitch, then you’d require something more than a teacup as Placing Ads on teacups is an old logic of marketing. The old logic of marketing was that the more you throw ads at the younger generations, the earlier you can get them hooked on your brand.
Unfortunately, millennials are hooked on smartphone technology an average of 18 hours a day as witnessed every day in traffic, on public transportation and in restaurants. Take note of “restaurants”- which means that they only pay attention to the outside world when they want to place an order or read from a Menu, after which their attention is shifted back to their smartphone.
Are the restaurant/ café employees going to be deliberate in pointing out to inattentive customers (smartphone zombies) that the teacup contains Ads which they may be interested in?
It should be known that 84% of millennials don’t trust traditional advertising. Instead of pushing your products to them, they need to have a reason to come to you. The goal is to showcase your products in a natural way that doesn’t make them feel like advertisements.
The Average size of a teacup as used in restaurants and cafés is 6 x 8/11cm in diameter which means that there is only a limited amount of information that can be passed based on the available printing space.
Consider this - my sister in the UK recently started a business and will like to advertise via the platform 'Panora', how will you write in a few words that 'Chrinnox Consults' is a tested and trusted travel consultancy firm in the UK (United Kingdom) specialized in visa application guide, flight arrangements, proof of funds, and so on?
What font size will the information be oriented in, and how many words will be adequate to pass a convincing information?
A quoted statement - “At Panora, our adverts are open to customers for 2220 seconds on average”. 2220 seconds is equivalent to 37 minutes, this statement defies statistics which says that teacups Branding advertising offers the brand exposure of a minimum of 5-10 minutes.
If companies are paying for advertisement on Panora, they’d be aware that the Ads will be done via teacups which means they’d be basically paying for each teacups distributed and the cost of printing the Ads onto them but at what cost?
Conclusion
If a profit of 20 Cents is made from each cup distributed, it indirectly means the company is responsible for buying its own teacups and responsible for its product description and printing on the coffee cups. Which in turn means that Panora basically does nothing but collects the cups from the organizations that intends to advertise its products and distributes them to restaurants, while collecting a fee of 20 cents per cups collected from the organization they’re distributing for.
In the end, Panora as an advertising platform wouldn't work because organizations would basically run their own Ads on coffee cups and will simply distributes them to restaurants via Panora, but for a fee. Making Panora a platform of errand/ delivery men and not advertisers.
Advertising on coffee cups works but cannot rival digital advertising in my opinion because more attention is given to smartphones than to billboards or Ads sitting right in front of us.
First posted on my read.cash blog. (modified)!