The Orlando Sentinel, Fla.
July 3, 2000
It started with a simple goal: Find a way to capture the attention -- for the sake of advertisers -- of all those
tourists staying in area hotels. The traditional methods -- generally through brochures, magazines and coupons
placed in hotel lobbies -- are fine, but they require some effort on the part of tourists, who are bombarded with
sights and sounds from the minute they get off their airplanes.
"One day it just popped into my head. Playing cards," said Charles Levin, the founder of a start-up company
with a fairly novel approach.
His company, Where To Go Inc., distributes customized card decks -- called Super Decks -- through nearly three
dozen tourist hotels. The card backs show the name and a photo of the hotel, but what makes them valuable to advertisers
is that each of the faces is dedicated to a specific business.
Upon check-in at any of the hotels, a guest is given one of the decks, which comes in a box that also contains
an area map, coupons and a room key.
The map is coded -- locations are depicted by their corresponding card -- so that a guest can quickly find a particular
advertiser and its discount offer.
The cards carry at least one additional advantage over brochures and magazines, in that they are more likely to
be kept as souvenirs.
"People don't throw away playing cards. Our hope is that they will take them home," said Levin, who used
to make his living rounding up potential customers for the area's time-share companies.
Levin says he will be expanding to more than 100 hotels soon. But while the advertising gimmick appears to off
to a fairly strong start, there are some hurdles that must be cleared.
He has yet to persuade the big three, Disney, Universal and SeaWorld, to climb on board.
And some of the smaller advertisers, while optimistic, are hoping for better results as the months go by.
"The final judgement is still out, but they are building very quickly," said Todd Hansen, spokesman for
Ripley's Believe It or Not!
(c) Copyright The Orlando Sentinel. All rights reserved. To see more of The Orlando Sentinel, or to subscribe to
the newspaper, go to http://www.orlandosentinel.com