Free ad-supported copy and photo printing services in Japan

Written by: Michael Keferl on July 17, 2007 at 7:08 am | In 02 Marketing & Ad Trends |

Let’s be honest, it’s always better when we don’t have to pay for things, right? There are now a couple of cool Japanese companies trying to make that as easy as possible for us, at least when it comes to printing, by supporting the cost with advertisements embedded on the final product.

The cheapmeister, makin’ copies

Tada Copy (タダコピ) means “free copy”, and that exactly what’s being offered to students at a number of Tokyo universities through standard copy machines. Founded by young entrepreneurs at Oceanize, Tada Copy charges advertisers for ad placement printed on the reverse side of the paper. 100,000 pages of ads are sold for ¥400,000 ($3,250), and the current roster of sponsors is pretty hefty, including college favorites Kentucky Fried Chicken and Japan Tobacco. The paper is thicker than usual to prevent bleeding, and the ads themselves are typically adorned with QR codes or “search me” ads to connect viewers to mobile or PC site material.

This nostalgia is brought to you by Nissan

Putting ads on the back of copies of classroom notes or quizzes is one thing, but on our precious memories? Priea is a social network for photos that doubles as a free photo printing service for its users. Members can upload up to 2GB of photos to the site, organize them into albums, makes comments, and other SNS features, but they also get thirty free printed photos per month delivered right to their door within a week. The catch, of course, is that the photos come with embedded ads.

The site itself is very easy to use, and you have the option of choosing which ads go onto which pictures. Some are small banners in the corner of the photo itself, but others are large ads that are on the photo paper but not on the image. The large ads also come with the aforementioned QR codes for scanning by mobile phone. As of this month, Priea has over 200,000 members.

With all of this free printing going on, it’s easy to get carried away, so one must be mindful that both resumes and framed photos to your loved ones are probably best to be left ad-free unless you’re applying for a job at the Consumerist or planning or breaking up soon. The obvious benefit for advertisers is targeted marketing of young, cash-strapped students, but in the end it still relies on the shaky premise that students actually read their notes.

Tada Copy homepage
Priea homepage

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