Spread the brand, spread the love

MANILA, Philippines - P300,000 can buy a lot of daily necessities: groceries, medicine, clothes, personal care products and a list of other items that could go on for miles. P300,000 — that’s how much an ad on a billboard costs. The point is: the most effective ads travel many, many miles.

It’s hard to miss billboards while driving along the freeway. Thousands of people see them under neon lights going to and coming from their destinations each day. The downside is, billboards are as good as gone soon after motorists speed past them.

“What if we have another way to reach all those thousands of people and deliver a message that will make a real impact?” says My Free Gas president Doby Atilano.

My Free Gas is a medium that innovates advertising by taking advertisers straight to their target markets and then rewarding the people who carry these advertisers — on the rear windshields of their cars, that is.

First, car owners volunteer to let My Free Gas stick a 20-by-3.5-inch ad on their vehicles for an agreed number of months. Second, they need to accumulate a minimum travel mileage of 300 kilometers per month with the sticker intact on their rear windshields. Finally, My Free Gas awards volunteers with a P1,000 Caltex gas card every month in return for promoting the ad.

My Free Gas has a register of thousands of car owners who have volunteered their vehicles to carry the sticker ads for advertisers. Advertisers in turn can handpick from a wide range of demographics that would be most appropriate for their brands. Their ads can be placed on virtually any type of vehicle they wish, with the car owners chosen according to age, profession/occupation, gender, car make/color, parking location, as well as specific travel routes. For example, an advertiser can specify the exact number of cars carrying their brands going to Makati, Ortigas, Alabang, Taguig, or any other location they select. 

“If you’re going to spend P300,000 on a billboard, you might as well spend it on an ad that gives back to the community,” Atilano says.

“With that amount, you can help about 200 families or car owners with their monthly fuel expense. My Free Gas offers advertisers more value for their money, but our most important goal is to make advertisers realize that they can also spread some love while spreading a brand.”

There are many effective ways to advertise, and while tried and tested advertising channels have offered indisputable results, not many of them can also give back to the very people who believe in a brand.

“My Free Gas is the first advertising tool of its kind in the Philippines or anywhere in the world,” Atilano says. “We are able to bring a brand closer to the target market and foster goodwill at the same time.”

For more information on My Free Gas, call 0917-839-4734, 994-7424 or 914-0489.