Member Article

Santander Award Cash to Innovative Graduates’ Advertising Business

The Santander National Entrepreneurship Runner-up Award 2012 has been awarded to the innovative advertising business Uni Car Ads.

Run by recent graduates Charlie Warburg and Will Clowes, the company targets students specifically using large advertisement on the doors and bonnets of cars in densely populated student areas.

Uni Car Ads were awarded a £3,000 cash prize and came in second place at the awards ceremony held at the Royal Opera House last week. The grant comes as part of the Santander Universities Entrepreneurship Awards, which encourages and supports students’ business talents by offering internship schemes and funding to budding entrepreneurs. The Spanish bank hopes to encourage university students to chase their entrepreneurial ambitions through this initiative.

Santander have supported over 21,799 scholarships and grants, 4,455 university projects, as well as other entrepreneurial ventures and extra-curricular schemes worldwide. They hope to promote higher education, and their investment in UK universities has been taken to £7 million this year.

Uni Car Ads entered into the draw along with over 45 competitors from UK universities. As Newcastle University graduates, their business started in the North East and is now expanding into different university cities, including Leeds, Durham and Edinburgh.

Director Will Clowes said: “We are really happy with the Santander prize. It’s great to have some recognition and a bit of money to support us.” After joking that he and his business partner were going on holiday with the grant, he commented that they will be using the money to help with expansion and for software to help run the business.

The idea for Uni Car Ads came from Charlie and Will noticing the abundance of leaflets through their front door and endless flyers being pushed into their hands in town centres. They commented: ‘We were shocked at how bad student adverts are. Using stickers on cars to advertise means it’s not a one-time hit, it gets seen again and again. Also, the advert gets seen by groups of students, so our clients can gain business through word of mouth.’

The inventive advertising method is backed up by research that the young business men have conducted. Their surveys have shown that 178 students an hour walk past their car stickers. The cost for businesses comes out at 93p per thousand students seeing an advert, which undercuts the cost of billboard and leaflet advertising.

The most recent companies to come on board with Uni Car Ads are IKEA, Wilkinsons and pizza delivery company Dominoes, who will see their advertisements on cars to reach a specific student audience.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Miranda Dobson .