DESIGNS IN DECORATOR WOOD & LAMINATES, LTD.

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Entrepreneurs

On A Roll!

Selling ad space on a
surprising surface
... toilet paper.

AV,

HARRY KIRSBAUM I CONTRIBUTING WRITER

he idea was born in
2009 where many
ideas are born, sitting
on a toilet.
Jordan Silverman, then
a philosophy major at the
University of Michigan, was
sitting in the library stall
thinking about the prevalence of
advertising, and noticed the one
place where advertising hadn't
yet infiltrated its influence — the
roll of toilet paper.
"I thought to myself, 'everyone
reads in the bathroom, why are
Jordan and Bryan Silverman
there no ads?" Jordan said.
The idea stuck in his mind.
"Like many people, I believe I have a lot of good ideas, but I came to
really think this one was special when it kept coming back to me," he said.
After some research, Jordan realized that no one else had thought of the
idea of placing ads on the most temporary of surfaces. He enlisted the help
of his brother, Bryan, a student at Duke University, and the Star Toilet Paper
Company was born.
The company prints 125 ads on a roll of toilet paper, and, so far, seven
venues in Ann Arbor, Detroit and North Carolina feature the rolls in their
bathrooms.
Ads are printed on recycled toilet paper with non-abrasive, vegetable
oil-based ink. The company's website, www.startoiletpaper.com , allows
advertisers to purchase and target ads to the venues, and allows the "users"
to redeem the coupons by entering the code numbers from the ads.
The code allows the advertisers to track where the ads have the biggest
impact, and allows Star Toilet Paper Company to show advertisers how
effective the ads can be.
"We distribute right now simply by obtaining a venue, finding advertisers
and then we ship or drop off the boxes of rolls at the venue," said Bryan
Silverman. "We label each roll as male or female so the venue knows to
place any given roll in a specific gender's bathroom.
"We give the toilet paper to public venues for absolutely no cost to them
and sell advertisements for half a cent per ad. On a normal sized roll (of 550
sheets), an advertiser will be one of six companies."
Bryan won the 2012 Student Entrepreneur of the Year Award and $5,000
from Entrepreneur magazine.
The brothers hail from Rye Brook, N.Y., located 40 minutes from
Manhattan.
With 70 advertisers and a total of four employees, they are just beginning
to expand.
"We envision ourselves producing a toilet paper empire," said Bryan.
"We see ourselves having the potential to be in every public venue across
America."

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January 10 • 2013

39