Restaurant menu place mat advertising has been around since the early 1970’s.
How does it work?
Paper place mats are provided to local restaurants with the agreement that the restaurant will use them. The advertising agency sells advertising space on the place mats, which covers the cost of the printing and a modest profit.
It’s a win-win-win business model. The restaurant owner is able to offer his customers a clean sanitary and entertaining place mat for diners to read while waiting for their meal, or as they are eating.
The advertiser benefits from local advertising that is pennies in comparison to the local newspaper. The ad agency benefits by being able to profit while providing a valuable service.
Restaurant place mats featuring advertisements are normally seen in smaller locally owned restaurants as many franchised restaurants have restrictions on having third party advertisers within the location. Some franchise agreements are so strict on restaurateurs, that they are even limited to the number of newspaper boxes that they can have by the doors of the restaurant.
As it is mostly smaller restaurants that are able to use the services of a place mat advertising agency, the benefits are still great. Smaller locally owned restaurants that aren’t franchises are typically very popular locations in smaller towns and commonly can be the social center of the area. This puts your business in front of the locals and repeated exposure to your business name over and over again, why, that’s the whole purpose of advertising…getting your name out there and keeping it there.
I encourage you to explore restaurant place mat advertising.
As someone that has used it for a couple years now, it’s a very effective way of advertising if the restaurant using the place mats is popular.