Mugging for ad dollars
Coffee mug ads show up in area eateries
From Bullock’s Airport Inn in Westminster to Mt. Airy’s Olde Town Restaurant, coffee mugs are hot real estate for businesses looking to get some word-of-mouth
advertising.
Mugs bearing businesses’ advertisements have become a common sight in many Carroll County restaurants.
Larry Litherland, district manager for Mugs Across America in Baltimore, the company that sells the advertisements and the coffee cups, said mug advertising
reaches the customers at the most opportune time - during meals or coffee breaks - at eateries that serve as meeting spots for the community.
“It’s a natural thing to kill some time,” said Nancy Bullock, part owner of the Bullock’s Airport Inn in Westminster. “People will reach whatever is in
front of them.”
Mugs Across America provides the mugs for free if the restaurants agree to use them exclusively for a year until they are replaced with fresh ads.
Litherland said businesses pay about a dollar a mug to advertise at a restaurant. The bigger the restaurant, the more mugs and the more expensive it is
to advertise.
The restaurants have a choice of three types of porcelain and ceramic mugs that vary in strength and quality.
 Baugher’s Country Restaurant in Westminster is the largest mug
user with 540. Bullock’s restaurant uses about 360 mugs. Others using the mugs include The Smokehouse Restaurant in Hampstead and the Double M Restaurant in Taneytown.
The unforeseen cost, according to Litherland, is breakage. While the thick ceramic mugs are hearty enough to withstand being
dropped on concrete, he said, harsh treatment in dishwashers and bus pans can be too much. He said some restaurants have bought extra to sell.
Chester Warhime of the Smokehouse said the mugs are so popular that he has sold two cases of them.
Mary Clark, part-owner of Face The Music, a CD and tape store at Mt. Airy’s Twin Arch Shopping Center, said the mug was a cheap
way to advertise for her business.
“It’s just human nature to look at a mug,” she said.
Karen Kuhn of Ben’s Rentals, which advertises on the Bullock’s mugs, can’t say that
anyone has patronized her business because of the mugs, but she knows the name is getting exposure.
“Every time we get breakfast on Saturday morning there are an awful lot of people drinking coffee,” she said.
- Charles Cohen, Carroll County Times Staff Writer. April 9, 1994
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