An Irishman's Diary

I don't know what I ever did to encourage them, but the people at Marketing magazine send me a free copy of their publication every month.

Thus I see that this week is the deadline for the 2006 Marketer of the Year award. I don't even know if journalists are allowed to enter. But by sheer chance, I happen to have an idea that would revolutionise advertising. And for what it's worth, I'll share it with you.

It has always been fashionable to complain about the ubiquity of advertising in public places. Seventy years ago, Ogden Nash was moved to poetry on the subject. "I think that I shall never see/ A poem lovely as a tree/ Indeed, unless the billboards fall/ I'll never see a tree at all," he wrote. Yet it seems to me that, even now, marketers are still not exploiting all the possibilities, and one in particular. In short, I suggest the time has come to advertise on people's bottoms.

Not on their actual bottoms, obviously. That would be vulgar and, besides, it would work only in nudist colonies, which would automatically deter clients from the important fashion and textile sectors. No, the advertising I have in mind would appear on small "billboards" ironed on to the rear ends of jeans and other tight-fitting clothes.

You can be snooty about this if you like. But there's no use pretending that a shapely bottom (of either gender) does not attract high viewership figures, especially among the crucial 18-35 age group that advertisers are so keen to target. I can only speak for men when I say that the potential advertising space on a retreating female catches the eye in a way that gable-wall or bus-shelter ads will never match. An attractively presented site, moving slowly on a pedestrianised street, would achieve a lot of what marketers call "reach".

By coincidence, I saw a promo this week for an ad agency that specialises in decking out the backs of buses. One of its selling points was that Dublin traffic now moves at an average 8.4 miles an hour, while the average pedestrian wait at traffic lights is 55 seconds. The message was that your bus ad was guaranteed lengthy exposure.

My idea would not compete with buses, of course, but the comparison is telling. Rather than frustrated commuters angry with life, my target audience would be people strolling along the street or footpath: relaxed, surrounded by shops, and ready to buy things.

Some may say that bottom-based ads would be too demeaning to catch on. I think not. The fashion industry has already prepared the way for this, albeit tentatively. You may remember that a summer or two ago there was a vogue for women's jeans with single-word messages written across the rear: words like "love" and "luscious". From there it would have been a small enough jump to ads for student bank accounts, Clery's winter sale, or whatever. But the encouraging thing about those jeans from a marketing point of view is that there was no shortage of people willing to look ridiculous, even without getting paid for it.

I imagine the typical person who would rent out this kind of space would be a student, who might otherwise have to work in a burger restaurant. Apart from the requirement to walk up and down in public places, they would be free to use their time as they wished: listening to an iPod, or maybe doing a Linguaphone course in German. They could stroll along Grafton Street reading The Brothers Karamazov, for all anyone cared.

Bottom advertising would be in keeping with the Zeitgeist, I believe. It would be more environmentally friendly than handing out fliers. And the sheer cheekiness of it - no pun intended, I swear - would surely appeal to Celtic Tiger cubs. There's a popular café I frequent which stresses the health benefits of its smoothies by the use of risqué slogans on staff uniforms. Often I have to order my lunch from a young woman with "a nice pear" written on the front of her T-shirt. But I have learned not to think any the worse of her because of this. Anything that encourages people to eat fruit can't be bad.

T-shirt advertising has gone about as far as it can. Bottoms are the new frontier. But T-shirts suggest the huge potential for this, in the long term. The beauty of the concept is that, once bottom-based advertising becomes established, it will gradually infiltrate fashion. Soon people will display your advertisements at no charge. They may even pay you for the privilege. Eventually, visitors to Dublin will think it compulsory to buy jeans with "Guinness" written across the butt.

I haven't given any thought to rates yet. But the agency I envisage would be a low-budget, no frills affair, with minimal overheads and tight margins. Essentially, it would be a Ryanair version of advertising (with the obvious difference that you would be able to book seats).

I know what marketers everywhere must be thinking. It's such a brilliant idea, and yet so simple; why didn't we didn't come up with it first? But there you are. When you're too close to a thing, sometimes the obvious escapes you, and it takes an outsider to see it. Where did I put that application form?