InLineAdz launches campaign to promote small businesses

A new platform to promote local businesses is taking root in Westport. More accurately, the campaign is playing soon in a local shop near you.

A concept created by Joe Grushkin, president and founder of Westport-based InLineAdz, the "local economic stimulation program" utilizes large screen TV monitors to display advertisements, news and weather. Monitors are placed in prominent locations in local businesses and continuously play the programming loop.

Oscar's Delicatessen is the first business in town to have a monitor, with several additional locations to come on board in the coming months, including another Main Street mainstay, Ace Hardware.

Lee Papageorge, owner of Oscar's, explained that the monitor is divided into three sections -- one for the advertisements, another for the news headlines provided by westportnow and the Associated Press and the third is dedicated to Oscar's. "Right now, it says thank you for eating at Oscar's," Papageorge said Tuesday morning. Moments later an advertisement for Nerds To Go popped up, then one for a local painting company.

Papageorge thinks of the monitor as providing a "social service" to customers. So, Oscar's section of the monitor will feature weather, tides, stock market updates and happy birthday wishes to customers. And, in the right location, he said the monitors provide a great way for small businesses to relay their message to people.

"It gives small mom-and-pop advertisers the opportunity to advertise in another mom-and-pop store," Papageorge said. "The key to the whole thing is that it's affordable."

By the numbers

For $500 per year, a company can advertise through InLineAdz' "local economic stimulation program." That breaks down to approximately $1.35 per day -- about the cost of a cup of coffe, Grushkin noted. A reasonable cost, he added, to reach the more than 100,000 potential customers who visit Oscar's each year or the nearly 80,000 people who shop at Ace.

Each screen can hold a maximum of 90 ads, creating a minimum rotation for each ad of four times an hour. InLineAdz currently has approximately 30 advertisers on board.

"My company is putting your name, branded, in front of approximately 100,000 people per year, per location," Grushkin said. "When you look at the micro part of this ... the businesses who want to grow see the logic."

Yet, he pointed out that all the marketing in the world won't help a business if it doesn't have strong fundamentals.

"The bottom line is that if you have to have a good product, provide excellent service and be consistent," Grushkin said. "That's the tell-tale sign of a good business."

But, he added, "If nobody knows you exist, you'll never survive."

Grushkin believes his program is the future of advertising -- a strategy that taps into people's desire for visual and mental stimulation as they wait to pay for products, while meeting the needs of local businesses that are looking for an affordable means of disseminating their message.

"I think the time has come for this kind of advertising," he said. "It really is about being grassroots and local."

Dr. Gerald Cavallo, associate professor of marketing in the Dolan School of Business at Fairfield University, said InLine

Adz campaign is likely to be well received by small businesses that are looking to advertise without breaking their budget. "This gives them a piece of the action," he said. "It gives them exposure."

And with the American economy still climbing out of the depths of the recession and several small businesses shuttering in the last year, Cavallo said it's extremely critical to keep bringing the message to the market.

Grushkin, a member of the Westport-Weston Chamber of Commerce, has been doing just that, too. Just yesterday he attended the chamber's Leads Group meeting to connect with local merchants and introduce them to his new campaign. The chamber also recently sent out an e-blast message to members about InLineAdz campaign.

"It looks good," said Lisa Thygerson, executive director of the chamber. "It's fantastic."

InLineAdz basic strategy is not necessarily groundbreaking, Cavallo said, citing its similarities to billboards, which are one of the oldest forms of advertising. InLineAdz' campaign is particularly akin to new, digital billboards that change the message every few seconds. Yet, because of the cost associated with billboard advertising, it is largely an arena dominated by more sizeable enterprises with bigger budgets.

"The uniqueness of this is that it's being brought down to the very local level," Cavallo said.

And the same model is being implemented across the country. Grushkin said he has 85 sales representatives in 28 states who are working on establishing the program in new markets.

"The buzz is phenomenal," he said.

For more information about InLineAdz and its latest marketing platform, visit inlineadz.com or contact Grushkin at (203) 557-3670 or joe@inlineadz.com