When I was staying in Myrtle Beach for a week last year, the hotel we stayed at had a poster size add inside each of the elevators there. It was for some local pizza place on the strip, and showed great close up pictures of all of the different items they served, along with prices, hours of operation and a phone number for delivery. The food looked great.
As a guest there, that ad was the very last thing we saw before going out to dinner, and was the first thing we saw on our way back to the room at the end of very long days. There was the standard list of restaurants and coupons inside the room, but that list is so easy to ignore. Every time we rode the elevator, there were the great pics of the food and the phone number to have it arrive magically. Every single guest on the second floor and above was forced to stare at that food several times a day. The few times we mentioned the ad, someone else in the elevator said they had already tried it and said it was great! It seems the ad worked very well.
We finally gave in one night when we took too long playing the giant putt-putt course and our restaurant of choice had already closed by the time we got there. The food really was great, and after I tipped the driver 20 bux, I told him I was a pizza guy too and asked about the job. He said he came to this hotel many times a night because of that ad, and a few other hotels have it in the elevators too.
I have to admit, I am a fan of scrutinizing various marketing techniques, and this particular one was quite impossible to resist for many. To have your ad in an elevator exclusively with thousands of captive audiences seeing it over and over again is quite powerful. I have no idea what they pay for that exclusivity, but my guess is that it pays for itself many times over.
I remember in some serial killer movie, the clue given to the cops from the psycho was “people covet what they see”. That is so true, especially in marketing. People can’t ‘want’ your food unless they know about it. You have to rise above the noise of all the other ads out there to get their attention. This ad did that very well.