Disruptive Trends: Theory & Real Life Application

Fedor Borovykh, Business Development Manager, Ads For CartsTheoryBusiness owners succeed by not adapting to the market, but by adapting the market to themselves. They can accomplish this by riding the wave of disruptive trends in result creating a need that was not originally there. In most cases, the principles of an existing industry are used, however, each principle is reinvented using a different method or technology. Gradually the market adapts and a great business is born. So if you are a business owner focused on creating needs and niches on a consistent basis then your business will become a Fortune 500 Company in the next 10-20 years.If we take outdoor advertising industry as an example we can break it down into 3 major factors:

1. The location of the billboard - The location varies geographically from the heart or Times Square to rural Kansas.
2. The placement of the billboard - The placement can be anything from a phone kiosk panel to a billboard on top of a building.
3. The billboard itself - The first billboards date back to 1835 when circuses used the new lithography technology to print posters and post them on horse carriages. And ever since those days billboards have always been two dimensional canvases.

So in theory if we were to take these three principles a put a different spin on them, we would be able to disrupt the outdoor advertising industry and dominate the market.ApplicationOne day as I was walking down the busy streets of New York City I started to look at the surroundings in terms of surfaces. Sidewalks became surfaces, building walls became surfaces, and so on. I noticed that every single surface was taken by some sort of advertisement. Taxis had taxi tops, lampposts had stickers, phone kiosks had panels, etc. Every conceivable surface had some type of printed material plastered all over of it…except one.Street food carts.It is with these carts that I noticed the untapped potential for the next phase of outdoor advertising. No one had ever thought to use the roofs of these carts as a delivery vehicle for billboards. However, this is where I saw a huge opportunity.Since New York City is home to some 3000 street carts that can be placed on any street corner, the advertising possibilities are endless.The carts handled the location since they can be moved freely along the city streets of New York City and they handled the placement because the billboard could be placed on top the cart.However, I still had to figure out the last factor - the billboard.After a lot of thought experiments my creative team and I came up with a billboard so innovative that we inadvertently created a new category in the outdoor advertising space.We created the world’s first 3D Billboard.With our engineering expertise we were able to manufacture large scale models of the products that brands want to promote.So an 8 in. HINT Water bottle became an impressive 8 ft. tall model.The end result is a 3D Billboard that gets attention, builds brand awareness, and leads to higher sales.Because of this new approach to solve an old problem our billboards are more visible than phone kiosks and are more affordable than regular billboards.This is how Ads For Carts was born.Conclusion

Adopting disruptive technology is a key to success for any business. First, dissect the industry into a couple driving factors. Second, find ways to reinvent each factor. We were able to do this with Ads For Carts and we strongly believe that it can be done for any other industry. [author]About the Author: Fedor Borovykh – is a Business Development Manager at Ads For Carts. Ads For Carts is an Outdoor Advertising Agency that specializes in placing 3D Billboards all over New York City at an affordable rate. [/author]