What you can, and shouldn’t, give customers with the bill: guerrilla marketing in cafés

At the café Alkhimiya (“Alchemy”) in Odesa, they brought us the busi­ness card of a sim­i­lar café, Bufet, along with the bill.

Note that the cards weren’t lying on the table: they were brought specif­i­cally with the bill. That’s why I noticed and remembered.

At Le Mon, a fairly expen­sive café on Bunina Street, the bill came on a little plate like this:

(Image lost: the plate the bill came on, cov­ered in ads.)

Ads for water fil­ters and some sort of win­dows, I think. It looks disgusting.

Conclusion: you have to approach guer­rilla mar­ket­ing wisely.

1. Your offer must be rel­e­vant: it should answer your cus­tomers’ needs and com­ple­ment your own offer, so as not to seem pushy.
2. Your ad must be easy to take in. After all, if you serve an ad with the bill, you’re hoping the cus­tomer will take it with them, right?

Now who, tell me, who, leav­ing a café, will take along a flyer from a com­pany that sells fil­ters or installs win­dows of what­ever high qual­ity? A flyer and a booklet!

But the idea is a good one! At Alkhimiya they get it. I might drop into their Bufet some time :)

P.S. Almost forgot the funny part: I put my own busi­ness card on that little plate at Le Mon. In revenge.