LEAH SORIAS Thursday, July 6 2006

Darryl Smith and his wife Danielle Campbell Smith.

A local company is turning heads in the ad business

As a brand manager at G-Tech, Darryl Smith got an inside track on what advertisers liked and what they didn’t. Tired of the cliched route that local companies often use to get their message across, Smith decided he had enough.

It hit him that the local advertising industry needed a shot in the arm and he was going to be the one to give it to them.

He, along with his wife Danielle, began combing and doing extensive Internet research for new forms of advertising media. They came across a Florida-based company, Shine Mark Systems, which manufactured an advertising system called the Show-Shiner.

The concept of the machine, Smith explained, is to catch a person’s attention, through live ads, while they are getting a free shoe-shine.

The couple left their respective jobs — Danielle worked as a legal officer at Evolving Technology (E-tech), a company contracted to deal with industrial estate for the Government and Darryl was brand manager at G-Tech which he joined in 2000.

In March 2005, Advertising Impact was born. The company is now the sole distributor of the Show Shiner for 42 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean.

“I want them thinking outside the box,” said Smith, who is managing director of Advertising Impact Limited, a one-year-old company set up to provide an alternative to the traditional fare out there.

The new type of technology has already been launched at over 35 locations in Trinidad including all TGI Fridays outlets and other restaurants, major hotels, cinemas and supermarkets.

He said the machines are placed at strategic locations, free of charge, and are maintained at no cost to the business owners. Many may have seen the Show Shine maintenance team: a customised Renault shoe-mobile whose job is to ensure that the shiner is in peak performance status at all times.

Ad Impact is also one of the main suppliers of 50 foot eye-catching sky dancers which are customised balloon-like stick men bearing company slogans and logos.

Another is the Crane Game which is very popular at arcade games in major malls like Trincity Mall, Gulf City and Long Circular Mall.

The machine has a robotic crane arm inside a glass box and allows customers to control the arm with a joystick controller — while trying to pick up a prize which comprises of merchandised products from a company.

The business couple expect other products to be rolled out to complement those in their arsenal. From this month, ‘ad’ mirrors or mirror videos will be installed in bathrooms at popular restaurants and hotels, starting with 51 Degrees. Smith explained that the ads will actually be run inside the mirror. The franchise, he said, was bought from a company out of China.



Also coming from China and which will be launched soon, is the Charger Boy which is a power charging station for mobile phones. With this machine just about any phone — Nokia, Motorola, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Panasonic and Siemens, can be hooked up into it — and be charged. Laptops, video cameras and digital cameras can also be plugged into this product, Smith said. Like the shoe shiner, company ads will also be run on the station while the customer is getting his phone charged, Smith said.

Smith sees the charger as a big hit as there are over 50 million cell phone users in the Caribbean and Latin America. TGIF restaurants, Ruby Tuesday, MovieTowne, Tony Roma’s, Paria Suites Hotel and the Trinidad Hilton, have all signed up.

Smith’s novel marketing strategy seems to be paying off.

General Manager at Laparkan Shipping, Allan Julien, said that although advertising via billboards and the print media has served its purpose, the company was looking for new and more modern means of selling the company.

“People now view billboards on the highway as part of the landscape and don’t really notice the company that is actually doing the advertising,” he said.



He said Laparkan has ads running on Gulf Show-Shiners at the Petrotrin Gulf Club and the Moka Gulf Course in Maraval.

“We are extremely pleased with the level of recognition we get through the machines and the response from customers as well,” he added.

Tiffany Martin, brand manager, Carlsberg, described the concept of the shoe shining machine as novel and unique while at the same time being innovative and effective.

“The initial impact was that it grabbed the customers’ attention, and that is what we were looking for,” she added.



It’s the main reason, Smith said, why he has invested so heavily in trying to ensure that local companies don’t remain trapped in the traditional strategies of advertising.

His eyes were opened to the world of hi-tech advertising media used by big companies in the US. This came while he was pursuing his Bachelor of Arts Degree in Marketing and MBA in Business at the College of St Rose in New York.

“Although Trinidad is keeping pace with global trends, I realised that it was very limited in the area of advertising,” he said, noting that people seem to forget that the market responds to new ideas.

Advertising media can boost and downgrade a business but depending on its location, Smith said this can have little or no effect on passing traffic or sales. His advertising clients are a who’s who in the corporate sector. From insurance giant Clico, Volvo, Angostura, Nokia, Carlsberg, Land Rover Ford, Master Card, the National Lotteries Control Board (NLCB) as well as Flavourite Ice Cream, Sports and Games, Standards and Courts.

“We provide this type of technology for free to high pedestrian traffic areas that are comfortable and secure,” he said.

His big seller, Show Shine, allows advertisers to customise the image and impact they want to create depending on new promotions, various seasons, new ad campaigns, sales and new products.

At present, he said, Ad Impact is providing the machines to agents in 11 countries: TT, Grenada, Dominican Republic, Antigua, Barbados, Anguilla, St Kitts, St Martin, Guatemala, Jamaica and Costa Rica.

Smith said he expects by the end of 2007, the company will penetrate the other 31 countries across the Caribbean and Latin America. Plans are also afoot to lease, rent and even sell the Show Shiner to companies here. The budding entrepreneur pointed out that his company is finalising several other deals, including the Skyview from China, a ten foot helium ball with a flat screen on which live ads will play.

He is also looking at outdoor remote control blimps as well as interactive digital floor mat and ad rims which can run live ads on the rim of tires of delivery trucks and cars. From Korea will come branded computer mouses, mouse pads and coffee warmers as well as key chains with digital images.