HIGH-DEF NAPKINS

Step Inside Design, Mar/Apr 2008 by Taute, Michelle

Jay Jaber came up with the concept for NapAds while sitting at a bar writing down business ideas on a napkin. "I realized the napkin was blank," he says. "It was just a plain white space waiting to be printed on." Now his company gives marketers the chance to reach coveted 18- to 34-year-olds in one of their natural environments: bars and nightclubs. Unsuspecting revelers in New York or Washington, D.C., might receive what Jaber calls a high-definition napkin-featuring full-color, photorealistic imagery-along with their cocktails. From there, real-world social networking takes over with those pint-sized (and pint-friendly) napkins standing by to fill any lull in the conversation.

So far, clients ranging from Finlandia Vodka to American Express and The CW network have tapped into NapAds bar networks. In addition to catching young people when they're likely to be feeling good, NapAds offer advertisers the opportunity to personalize the message for any given target audience. A company can choose to have its ads grace napkins at sports bars to reach young men, or assign NapAds to create a custom bar network anywhere in the country. * www.napads.com

MICHELLE TAUTE, a former editor at I.D., has written for HOW, Metropolis, ArchitecturalRecord and others. She's the author of Design Matters: Brochures 01 from Rockport. www.michelletaute.com