Marketers use coasters as a way to place ads right underneath drinker’s mugs.
In marketing it is a simple fact that the more you target your message to the people you want hearing it, the more effective your campaign will be. When you are trying to get your message out to people who like drinking, the best place to target an ad, is often right under their mug.
This is a concept that beer companies have known about for years, and they have spent millions creating and distributing inexpensive paper or foam drink pads bearing their logos to bars around the world.
The newest trend in drink coaster marketing however is not to get people to drink more; it is actually trying to stop people from drinking too much. In Oregon , the local Liquor Control Commission has distributed 100,000 drink coasters to local bars and taverns. They contain facts and information regarding the effects of liquor, both on individuals and on society. The purpose of this campaign is to get people thinking, and talking, about the real effects of alcohol, on the chance that it might get them to reconsider what they are putting in their bodies.
In Mumbai , India , the local authorities are doing something similar, in a creepily extreme way. There traffic cops are distributing drink coasters with pictures of young, average looking Indian people on them. When a moist drink glass is placed on them however, an invisible red ink shows up making the faces seem battered and bleeding. Letters also appear across the side of the coaster reading “Just a Reminder: Drunken Driving Kills." It seems like it would be difficult to even have another sip of liquor with something like that staring you in the face.
Beverage coasters are also being used to target other negative behaviors often associated with drinkers. In Los Angeles , coasters containing STD facts are being distributed as part of a campaign to increase STD awareness. The use of coasters is obviously targeted to make people aware at the location of the drunken “hook up".
Using drink coasters as a way of targeting people who drink is an obvious, and brilliant, marketing tactic. The fact that groups supporting positive causes such as alcohol and STD awareness have now caught on to this long used beer company trick, means that another powerful tool is now in the hands of the good guys.
Article provided courtesy of http://Coasters.PebbleZ.com home of naturally absorbent stone drink coasters
