Dry Cleaners as Media Channels: The Eco-Hanger Network

Out-of-home advertising is the next frontier and a big one. Usually, we’re focused on digital forms of it, whether electronic billboards on the side of the freeway, an elevator monitor, or a screen by the grocery checkout.

But in a true sign of our “post digital” age (thanks, Dan McCarthy), new forms of non-digital out of home are being developed. The latest is a dry cleaning network developed by Vesta Green Marketing Solutions that puts ads on higher quality “eco hangers.” The idea is that consumers will accept colorful ads on hangers because they’ll better support their clothes in the closet, and won’t contribute to the 3.5 billion hangers annually deposited in landfills.

Dry cleaners, themselves, are a premium service used by 35 million high-value households at 40,000 locations. They certainly provide a better demographic cut for media. Thirty-nine percent of college graduates use dry cleaners, for instance, although they make up just 22 percent of the population. They’re also highly targetable. Advertisers could target retailers within blocks or miles of a dry cleaner — or in the same mall.

Vesta believes that printing high quality and graphics on hangers will give consumers an “intimate” look at ads every time they peer into their closets. “There is no place like ‘in home,’ ” goes their presentation. To me, the whole thing initially sounded like a “Saturday Night Live” gag. Who wants to put beer ads in your own house?

Then again, inventive uses of out of home can grow on you. The LA Times has started printing ads on its delivery bags. Last Sunday, a large, colorful ad for a “Georgia O’Keefe” movie on The Lifetime Network caught my eye — and I ran to the DVR to record it. These things work.

Vesta says it is focused on rolling out its network with national advertisers. But local advertising is an obvious next phase, given the high targetability of the dry cleaner shops.