{"id":12600,"date":"2012-11-30T05:02:51","date_gmt":"2012-11-30T10:02:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/?p=12600"},"modified":"2012-11-30T14:26:31","modified_gmt":"2012-11-30T19:26:31","slug":"portsmouth-startup-innovates-local-advertising-with-beverage-coasters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/2012\/11\/30\/portsmouth-startup-innovates-local-advertising-with-beverage-coasters\/","title":{"rendered":"Drink Coasters 2.0: Seacoast Startup Puts Ads In A New Place"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

LocalCoasters<\/p>

<\/p><\/div>\n

By turning drink coasters into local advertising space, a self-described \u201ccoaster fiend\u201d and her three friends are trying to promote local businesses, support charities \u2013 and create local jobs while they\u2019re at it.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s how it works:<\/strong><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. LocalCoaster<\/a>\u00a0sells low-cost advertising to local shops like The RiverRun Bookstore on one side of a coaster.<\/li>\n
  2. On the flip side of the coaster, they sell higher-cost advertising to larger corporations \u2013 like Holloway Mercedes in Greenland.<\/li>\n
  3. The coasters are distributed to local restaurants for free.<\/li>\n
  4. The advertisers and restaurants vote on their favorite charities, online.<\/li>\n
  5. The winning charity collects the first $5,000 of ad revenue.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    So far, Whit Whitman \u2013 the coaster collector \u2013 and her three sidekicks, co-founders Jim Thompson, Susan Wiley, and Matt Burke, have 11 local businesses signed up, and one corporate advertiser. Saturday, they will deliver the first 110,000 coasters \u2013 which are made in Austin, TX \u2013 to 21 participating Portsmouth restaurants.<\/p>\n

    Most of the 16 charities are local or regional. They range from the Joan G. Lovering Health Center in Portsmouth, to Seacoast Eat Local.<\/p>\n

    Sounds cool. But is this business model viable?<\/strong><\/p>\n

    After talking to Whit Whitman and cofounder Matt Burke, we called up Thomas Gruen, the chair of the Whittemore School Of Business\u2019s marketing department, \u00a0at The University of New Hampshire. \u00a0He was impressed by LocalCoaster\u2019s use of: a \u201cunique parternship\u201d that allows for \u201cnew forms of advertising promotion;\u201d online engagement; and new trends in corporate social responsibility.<\/p>\n

    However, \u201cI\u2019m not buying their stock,\u201d Gruen said. \u201cFrom a sheer executional complexity standpoint I honestly don\u2019t see how that is going to work and make money.\u201d<\/p>\n

    Yet, Gruen couldn\u2019t quite put the idea down. He suggested LocalCoaster could charge more for advertising by focusing on beer brands, because advertisers would know the coasters were being viewed by their target market. In the same vein, Gruen said, having advertisements for businesses in walking distance of the restaurants with coasters could make the ad space similarly valuable.<\/p>\n

    What\u2019s next?<\/strong><\/p>\n

    Whitman and her partners are optimistic. \u201cI feel strongly that once we get six, eight, ten towns up and running, we will not only be helping local charities and local commerce, but we are going to generate a handful of jobs in each of those towns,\u201d Whitman says.<\/p>\n

    This February, LocalCoaster will launch in Portland, Maine. After that, they hope to expand to White Mountains, and beyond.<\/p>\n

    Author’s correction: we apologize for initially misspelling\u00a0Holloway Mercedes “Halloway” Mercedes, and pluralizing “LocalCoaster.”<\/em><\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    By turning drink coasters into local advertising space, a self-described \u201ccoaster fiend\u201d and her three friends are trying to promote local businesses, support charities \u2013 and create local jobs while they\u2019re at it. Here\u2019s how it works: LocalCoaster\u00a0sells low-cost advertising to local shops like The RiverRun Bookstore on one side of a coaster. On the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":12605,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[55,51,14],"tags":[451,450,508,552,364],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12600"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/84"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12600"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12600\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12611,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12600\/revisions\/12611"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/new-hampshire\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}