Pavement Marketing – Manchester

I saw this particular piece of ‘reverse graffiti’ on a rainy afternoon, smack bang in the middle of Manchester.

This had me thinking, is this a legitimate and effective way to get the sort of ‘mass exposure’ only huge brands can afford to buy?
Or is this Guerrilla marketing technique ineffective graffiti that is washed away in a week?

The process involves cutting a stencil, and power washing the area you wish to advertise on, leaving a crisp logo/slogan/URL. The process is a grey area in terms of legality, as it is hard to prosecute due to the ‘clean’ nature of reverse graffiti. There has been prosecutions on occasion however:

“Paul Curtis, also known as Moose, considered to be a pioneer for reverse graffiti, was recently charged for reverse graffiti in the United Kingdom under the Anti-Social Behaviour Act. “I’m waiting for the kind of Monty Python court case where exhibit A is a pot of cleaning fluid and exhibit B is a pair of my old socks,” Moose says.

This kind of advert is usually placed on weathered surfaces, meaning the ads can be more hard-waring than it seems. In some cases, the dirt that is blasted away during the creation of the ad has built up for years, so your ad may hang around longer than expected (We are talking from 6 weeks to a couple of months according to Leeds based agency reversegraffiti.co.uk)

This means you get ads in prime city center locations, for months – all for a few hundred quid.

So the question is: how effective is this form of cheap advertising?

I do believe there can be some positives for brand recognition and awareness for sure. When you consider you could place tens of ads in key places around your target areas, this has got to be a credible form of marketing. I like the naughtiness of it, and for me it comes across as ‘forward thinking’ and ‘cool’ – something a clothing brand like Duck & Cover would be looking for. This would be useful for big conferences, store openings or art galleries looking to increase footfall in their city.

Did it work on me?

Yes, however even though i had my iphone in my pocket, there was nothing in the ad that gave me any incentive to visit the URL. It gave the brand some credibility in my opinion, as i am all for brands that market outside the norm.

How could it be better?

A clear incentive, a voucher, a special offer? There was no reason for me to break out of my busy routine to visit this site. This could have worked great if they had given me directions to their store and an exclusive offer code to use on a purchase.

Alternatively, a SMS sortcode you can text for an offer. Or even a short URL to a newsletter sign-up. Or a QR code.

To sum up – nice – but an incentivised ad would have worked better for the brand.

Jay Chambers

**The above piece was created by the team at http://reversegraffiti.co.uk – i would recommend getting in touch with them if you are considering starting your own campaign!