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Strategies & Market Trends : Cents and Sensibility - Kimberly and Friends' Consortium -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jack Hartmann who wrote (100019)	4/24/2000 10:59:00 PM
From: Jack Hartmann	Respond to of 108040

Our Ad on Your Car: $400 a Month by Chris Oakes 3:00 a.m. Apr. 24, 2000 PDT Peter Rivera watched Thursday as a man pulled up to his home and took to Rivera's car with an Exacto knife, a squeegee, and several square yards of blue-and-white vinyl. About half an hour later Rivera's 1998 Ford Ranger was a rolling advertisement for an online insurance company: "Keep your insurance rates in check. LowestPremium.com." Corner Store - - - - - - - - Editorial policy C U L T U R E Today's Headlines 4:50 p.m. Apr. 24, 2000 PDT From Genius to Doofus Study: Joysticks Lead to Mayhem Our Ad on Your Car: $400 a Month Other Ways to Fry Spam E-Books for Writers, Not Readers Napster Spat Pits Fans vs. Bands Stayfree Minivan Free Car? More Like Fool's Gold Valley: 'Cruzing' to the Beach Of Pixels and Paper Giving It Back to Metallica Getting Girls Technical Why Girls Don't Compute Emusic Honcho Driving Downloads Columbine's 'Solution': Software Some Sites Devoted to Killers Microsoft Backing Atom's Antics Streaming Singing Senators EMI Plays Along with Downloads Net Stocks No Bargain -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- See also: Free Car? More Like Fool's Gold See also: Honk If You Fell For This Net CEOs 'Shallow and Greedy' Mind your own Business news -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The text is mingled with a blue banner on either side of the car and 10 big, white checkmarks -- all plastered around Rivera's side-panels, tailgate, hood, and doors. The job, covering only part of his car, is known as a "half-wrap." Rivera, a 34-year-old Berkeley waiter who commutes to San Francisco each day, wasn't an unwilling victim to this ad-jacking, of course. About two weeks earlier, he and his roommate had caught sight of a quarter-page print ad in SF Weekly placed by San Diego-based Autowraps.com. The ad said they could earn $400 a month by surrendering their vehicle to the same kind of ads seen on San Francisco's MUNI buses and employee automobiles sporting their companies' dot-com logos -- not to mention the Yahoo-outfitted taxicabs seen in San Francisco and Los Angeles. Both roommates soon signed up, and waited to be identified as 1,000 miles-per-month drivers with desirable travel habits. If selected, some advertiser would pin hopes for plenty of roadside exposure on disposable-income types. Rivera and roommate salivated at the prospect of just about breaking even on their car payment. "I was totally into it," Rivera said. "I'm still totally into it." His partial wrap, dictated by the advertiser, nets Rivera $250 per month for a three-month run. A spate of premium cars, notably the 1999 Volkswagen Beetle and high-riding sport-utility vehicles, trucks, and vans win a $400 full-wrap rate. Lesser vehicles get $300 a month. "That's free money," Rivera said. "My car payment's not that much. I have 0.9 percent financing, so basically I'm getting a free car." Welcome to the business model built by Daniel Shifrin, founder and president of Autowraps.com. "We're really getting jazzed about this," Shifrin said. "This is a national phenomenon." Indeed, it seems to bring to life the hoax that was an Esquire magazine article about a supposed chance to get a free minivan draped in an ad for "Stay Fresh" sanitary napkins. "People are calling like crazy," Shifrin said. So far, the database is filled with about 5,000 willing drivers hoping to get draped. Nationwide, 150 cars have been wrapped in the company's three-month soft-launch period, with many dot coms among the clients eager to stake out new territory in the new economy's space-scarce ad world. The name carries a hint as to Autowraps.com's business, but if you stopped in at their website, you might think you'd hit upon an environmentalist's mission statement. "Today the personal vehicle dominates the outdoor landscape more than any other time in history.... The car is king of the outdoors. The sheer physical dominance of the car coupled with the worst traffic congestion levels in history make" -- and here comes the clincher -- "the personal vehicle a natural medium for outdoor advertising." wired.com ******** I've seen it all. People are next. Tattoos for sale. Jack