Germany's smallest advertising column.
Fourteen sticker spots on the back of my iPhone Duo.
In 1854 Ernst Litfaß put up the first advertising column in Berlin, so that posters would stop being pasted all over people's walls. His columns stood on the street corner and waited. Mine doesn't wait. It measures eight and a half by twelve centimetres, holds fourteen sticker spots and spends half the day lying face down: on the train into Hamburg, on a café table, next to the laptop. A poster you take with you. Hence the name, which is German for “poster to go”.
On the back of my iPhone Duo in Starlight White. I can order it as soon as enough has come in here. Fourteen spots, each available once. Every one sold makes the next more expensive.
What it looks like in the end.
Fourteen die-cut vinyl circles, laminated, applied by hand. I made up the brands in the example below. They only show how full it ends up looking.
Why circles?
Corners peel after a few weeks in a pocket. Round stickers last longer, and die-cut they look cleaner. The two large spots across the middle are oblong anyway: a circle holds a mark, a band holds a word.
What fits on a sticker
A logo or a short name. 16 millimetres is not much, anything more turns into a grey smudge. Send me a vector file and I will do the rest. If your logo is no good in a circle, I would rather tell you than cut it badly.
Coverage: Hamburg.
This billboard does not stand on a street corner. It rides the S-Bahn.
On a working day
I am out in central Hamburg, on the S-Bahn and the bus. The phone is out all day and mostly lying face down. On the platform, on a café table, next to the laptop, at the supermarket till. In rush hour somebody is standing close enough to read your circle whether they want to or not.
And when I travel
Your brand comes along. Every trip, every conference, every airport, at no extra cost. A poster on a wall stays where it hangs. Mine is in my pocket.
Price list.
Not every position costs the same. The two bands across the middle are the dearest, that is where the eye goes first. The bottom row is the cheapest, that is usually where your little finger rests. The prices below apply right now. Every spot sold raises all the others by five percent.
The price you see applies now
No bidding, no waiting. You pay exactly the amount on the circle and then it is yours.
Every sale lifts the rest by 5 %
125 € becomes 131 €, then 138 €, and so on. The increase only applies to spots that are still free. The price you paid never changes again.
Which makes today the cheapest day
The first buyer pays least and carries the risk that nobody else turns up. Wait, and you pay more but you know the thing is running.
| Spot | Format | Price | Status |
|---|
Pick a spot
Who is on the sheet already.
An open list, unfiltered, in the order people bought. Whoever was early paid less, and anyone can check that here.
The rules.
No bidding, no midnight scramble. Four rules and you know everything.
Paid is paid
Pay for a circle and you keep it. No outbidding, no deadline where everything opens up again. Click once, pay once, and you never have to check back here.
Every sale raises the rest
Once a circle is gone, all the others cost five percent more. So the first spot is the cheapest there will ever be. What the page shows is always the current price.
Thirty minutes to think
Clicking “Hold this spot” reserves the circle for half an hour, so nobody cuts in while you are over at PayPal. If you do not pay, it goes free again and the price drops back for everyone. Paying later is no drama either. As long as nobody else has taken it by then, your payment still counts.
Applied as soon as the device is here
The sale runs until all fourteen spots are gone. Should I end it earlier, it will say so here at least a week before. The device gets ordered once the money is there, and that may well be next year. So I am not promising an exact date. Your year only starts on the day the sticker goes on, so waiting costs you nothing. What I will say: the stickers go on the day the device arrives, and you get a photo of your circle.
The maths, laid out.
There is no margin and no cut in this. What comes in is on this receipt.
Why 2,300 € exactly
The fourteen starting prices add up to exactly what the device costs. Not a round wish, but worked backwards: looked at the price tag, divided by fourteen, weighted by visibility. The roughly 30 € for the sticker sheet are missing from that total. I pay those myself, otherwise the number stops being neat.
If more comes in
The device does not get more expensive. The rest goes first into the sticker sheet I would otherwise pay for myself, then into more storage and better material: thicker laminate and UV-resistant film, so the circles are still readable after twelve months in a pocket.
If less comes in
Then everything sold goes on my current phone, just as reliably. The total decides which device, not whether the stickers happen.
The small print, set large.
The questions anyone would rightly ask about this, including the awkward ones.
How long does the sticker stay on?+
One year, counted from the day it goes on, not from the day you buy. If delivery slips, your year slips with it, so you lose no days. After that the sheet comes off, and you hear from me before it does. If I change the device before then, the circles move with it.
How does buying actually work?+
Click a circle, enter your name, link and email, press “Hold this spot”. The circle is then reserved for you for thirty minutes and blocked for everyone else. In that time you pay the amount shown via PayPal and put the spot number in the payment reference. Once the money reaches me I set the spot to final and your name goes on the list. If you do not pay, the circle is released automatically, nothing for you to do. You can open the link from your confirmation email later as well, it always tells you whether the circle is still yours.
Can someone take my spot away again?+
No. Once it is paid, the circle is out of the sale. There is no outbidding and no deadline where everything reopens. That is exactly why this is not an auction: you buy once and then you are done watching.
And if the phone breaks or gets stolen?+
Then I put your design on the replacement, at my cost, with nothing more to pay — on whatever phone I happen to have then. I am not going to buy a second iPhone Duo for 2,299 €, and it would be dishonest to promise that. So your circle may well ride out the rest of the year on a plainer device. What I also cannot replace are the weeks in between. That is the risk you buy into with an advertising space that has legs.
Do I get to see that my sticker is really on?+
On the day it goes on you get a photo of your circle on the device, not just a confirmation email. A full shot of the back goes on this page as well, showing all fourteen spots.
Can anything go on there?+
No. No party politics, no crypto recruiting, nothing harmful to minors, no brand logos that are not yours. The thing travels on my body for a year, so in case of doubt I decide. Honestly though: I only see your design once you have uploaded it, and by the time I look your payment is often already there. If it does not fit, I cancel and refund you in full, and the spot goes free again.
Why does the price rise the later I buy?+
Because every circle sold makes the next one scarcer. There are only fourteen, and one of them is gone for good. Buy early and you carry the risk that nobody else shows up, which is why you pay less. Buy late and you already know the thing is running. There is nothing more to it.
Is this any use as advertising at all?+
Honest answer: measured as pure reach, no. The back of a phone does not beat an ad. What you get is a conversation starter, a link on this page and a photo worth passing around. If you expect a conversion rate, spend the money elsewhere.
And if all fourteen spots do not sell?+
You still get what you paid for. If there is not enough in the end for the new device, the stickers sold go on my current phone. Same year, same routes, same photos, just an older piece of aluminium underneath. There is no threshold at which the whole thing collapses. The risk is mine.
Does something really go over the Apple logo?+
Yes. The two bands run across the middle and cover the logo on the way. It is my device, so that is my call. What I do object to is any impression that Apple has something to do with this. Hence the note at the bottom of every page.