Product scores with every perfect putt

Apr 21 2008 by Karen Dent, The Journal

A TYNESIDE businessman has swapped making sandwiches for selling subliminal adverts on the golf course.

Former catering company owner David Bainbridge came across the Ad in the Hole (AITH) concept while he was playing golf and decided to buy the worldwide rights to the product – basically a plastic golf hole with a disc bearing a company’s name or advert clicked into the base. The golfer sees the advertiser’s name every time they remove a ball from the hole.

Bainbridge, 52, ran the Newcastle-based City Catering Group, supplying sandwiches to shops and petrol stations, for 19 years before he decided to buy AITH in 2002. He has licensed the idea to different countries and is now concentrating on the British market from his base in Jesmond.

He said: “We have nearly conquered the world but we haven’t conquered the UK yet. We are fully tooled-up now, we don’t need to change the product. Our research and development is done. It goes into any golf course in the world, that’s the beauty of it.”

The AITH equipment is manufactured by Metromold, a plastic injection moulding company based in North Shields.

Bainbridge said: “We could send them to China and have them made at a tenth of the cost but we have them made in the North East. I’d rather have the moulds 12 miles away.”

AITH plans to create a 40-50 strong UK sales team by the summer. Once a golf club has agreed to take AITH, the business sells the space to advertisers. The club gets a percentage of the advertising revenue.

Bainbridge said AITH has the potential to make £3,000 per course per year in the UK. The mark-up is much higher abroad, especially in Asia and the Middle East. In Dubai, each course can earn £25,000-£30,000 annually.

He said :“We did our own tests in the US and there was a 91% recall rate of the name in the hole. It’s subliminal – it is great for brand awareness raising.”