They'll Pay to Have Ads Put on Shells? Egg-cellent!
Bradley Parker couldn't stop thinking about eggs. After watching a 1998 news special exposing a repackaging scandal in the egg industry, the 36-year-old investment banker pondered how to fix the problem. Having spent childhood summers at his uncle's North Carolina egg farm, Parker decided there must be a better way to mark eggs than imprinting a carton. So with little entrepreneurial experience, some savings, and the germ of an idea, Parker left Wall Street in 2001 to start a company called EggFusion.
Talk about walking on eggs! Many companies that start this way fail, because their founders fall in love with an idea but neglect to figure out if it's practical, says Judith Cone, vice president of entrepreneurship at the Kauffman Foundation.
It's a black hole that Parker has so far managed to avoid. While not yet profitable, his company, based in Deerfield, Ill., has 24 employees and has etched about 100 million eggs in the past year.
Getting started. Parker first learned the egg trade by meeting with business people across the country. That helped him put together a roster of employees with technical and start-up experience. His first hire was Steven Fox, an executive he met after spotting his business card in a hotel's free-lunch raffle bowl. Fox put Parker in touch with engineers and consultants.
EggFusion's main challenge was finding the best way to mark all those eggs. Most eggs aren't marked, of course, but the cartons are. The problem is that shoppers sometimes switch eggs from one carton to another, and quite a few toss the carton out at home. When farmers do print eggs themselves, they usually use ink, which isn't tamperproof or permanent.
Parker settled on using a laser to etch a code on the eggs. After plenty of false starts, EggFusion started making its own etching equipment.
But who would defray the costs of etching eggs? Egg farmers wouldn't invest in the machinery. Despite food safety concerns, few consumers would pay extra for marked eggs.
Parker concluded that advertising was the answer: Companies would shell out to put their messages on eggs in an effort to reach customers. So, EggFusion installs and maintains the etching equipment at egg farms and negotiates deals with grocers. It splits ad revenue with farmers and retailers alike.
CBS TV signed on this fall as EggFusion's first advertiser, promoting the network's fall lineup on grocery store shelves-or, more precisely, inside egg cartons. In September, slogans such as "CBS Mondays: Leave the yolks to us" and "CSI: Crack the case on CBS" started showing up on eggs, mostly on the East Coast. A CBS marketer had run across the EggFusion idea at a trade show.
"It's a brilliant way to find consumers when they least expect it," says George Schweitzer, president of the CBS marketing group. While there's no way to measure whether people who see the ads on eggs are tuning in to CBS, Schweitzer says they offer a good way to stand out.
Marketers these days are throwing money at all kinds of new advertising models in an effort to get noticed by overpitched consumers. Companies spent $53.4 billion on alternative advertising, such as pitches in video games or on mobile phones, during the first half of this year, 16 percent more than the same period last year, according to PQ Media.
What started off as "an idea off my couch" has now garnered even international attention, says Parker. EggFusion is already getting calls from farmers in Latin America, the Philippines, and Australia concerned about egg safety.
This story appears in the November 13, 2006 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.
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