They may not be paved with gold, exactly. But for a new and fast-growing sector of the advertising industry, the streets of Dublin are paved with the next best thing. I refer, of course, to dirt, writes Frank McNally.
Those clever people who toured the city with stencils recently and power-hosed ads for a directory inquiries service into its grimy footpaths are the equivalent of speculators in the Yukon, circa 1897.
Unfortunately, their secret is out now. The Irish Business Against Litter survey confirming Dublin as one of the dirtiest cities in Europe will only add to the stencilling frenzy. Soon, every young marketer with a hosepipe and a dream will be heading here to join the great dirt rush of 2007.
It's not only in Dublin that filthy footpaths have been found, I know. The cry "There's dirt in them there streets!" has been heard in Cork and Galway too, and in the great dirt-fields of Limerick. But the rumour in marketing circles is that Dublin's deposits are of a much higher grade than the stuff found elsewhere.
The idea behind this form of advertising is not new. It stems from the same primitive urge that first compelled 20th-century man to drag his index finger through the dust on a Hiace van in such a way as to form the words: "Wash me!" It was only a matter of time before marketing people saw the writing on the wall, as it were, and looked to the ground.
Even so, the method has been creating a stir in the US, where in August a firm called GoGorilla started power-hosing ads on to footpaths in cities from New York to Los Angeles. The service is available "anywhere the sidewalks are dirty enough", a company spokeswoman explained. But interestingly, this does not appear to include Chicago, where the streets were deemed too clean for the initial US campaign.
There is no such problem in Dublin. Even the rain, which is the main provider of street-cleaning services in much of the Irish capital, will present no obstacle to power-hosed ads, which remain visible for up to a month in all weathers. In any case, as luck would have it, the monsoons of last June and July are now just a memory.
As so often, autumn has brought us an Indian summer, dry and balmy. Like the trees, the footpaths of Dublin are now rich with colour (especially after a weekend) - the auburns, russets, and vermilions left by drinkers who threw up last night mingling with the sweet, sticky sap that oozes from the bottoms of over-ripe rubbish bins, and dappled with a million little snow-flake blobs of chewing gum.
Paradoxically, this is a blank canvas for guerrilla marketers. Their technique probably works best for hygiene-related goods and services. Detergents, toothpastes, exfoliation products and the like would all benefit from having their names displayed in this way. Likewise laundromats, cleaning agencies, and indeed power-hose manufacturers.
But it needn't stop there. The medium might also lend itself to political advertising, especially from those campaigning on a new-broom ticket. And then there are the churches. Where better than the footpaths of Sodom to display such messages as: "Wash me from mine iniquity and cleanse me from my sin" (Psalms 51:2)? The potential for art installations will be obvious. Literary installations too. Imagine a Bloomsday tour of Dublin, illustrated by extracts from Ulysses etched into the dirt underfoot.
Maybe even Dublin City Council might want a piece of the action. Power-hosed stencils would add rich irony to its warnings about the need to conserve water. This would surely appeal to the same wacky sense of humour with which the council broadcast those water-shortage ads during the summer, at the height of the deluge.
The beauty of this form of advertising is that, as the GoGorilla woman puts it: "As far as we know, there is no law against cleaning the streets." Plus, the sites are free (unlike even those standing display spaces that JC Decaux bought for 400 bicycles and a mess of pottage). And of course, there is no need to apply for pesky planning permission.
Then again, that note of uncertainty in the comment about US law applies double here. It is entirely possible that there is an ancient unrepealed statute, perhaps left over from Penal times, prohibiting the native Irish from washing the streets, on pain of death. Perhaps this lives on in the folk memory of shop keepers and publicans, whose ancestors were impaled on their own mops, or something.
It would certainly explain the deep-seated reluctance of many to clean the stretch of footpath in front of their doors, despite the obvious advertising potential of such a move. Never mind stencils. A pristine section of pavement in front of a retail business would speak louder than the slickest advertising slogan. Soon it won't matter, however, because the guerrilla marketers are coming. Before long, their ads will be leaking into each other on the footpaths, like competing claims in a goldfield. Who knows, there may come a time when even Dublin's rich resources of dirt will be depleted. But at least there won't be any need for a huge environmental clean-up afterwards.