User:Stalltalk/sandbox

The original idea for Stall Talk was to have 18 by 24 inch ad poster in porta above urinals and inside stall doors in highly trafficked bathrooms. These were to feature “Inspirational, informational, educational, and entertaining content coupled with advertising that integrated mobile marketing, to test for direct response rates on call to action campaigns,” Matt said with one breath of air. At the Knoxville Film Festival, Matt randomly came across a like-minded businessman and gave them one of his cards, who gave the card to someone else—as so it goes in social networking events. Through this encounter, Mr. Tunstall gained exclusive rights to a supplier in the porta potty industry wherein he expanded upon his original idea, now wrapping the advertising on the outside of the porta johns in a series, forming a billboard like effect. Matt photo-shopped advertisements of local businesses over top of a photo of 65 portable restrooms stacked next to each other at World’s Fair Park and started pitching them to their corporate owners.

The big break for Stall Talk Inc. came when the UT agreed to have the newly minted advertising achievement used at their home football games, requiring the first batch of advertisements to be prepared in under three weeks in order to roll out at their season opener. Stall Talk pulled it off to rave reviews. Business had progressed and now was the time to implement a serious plan into action.

Proper business plan formed, Mr. Tunstall set out to create a new frontier in advertising, and again everything seemed to fall into place. He knew he had been noticed when the vice president of the largest porta potty company sent him an email, simply stating, “I see what you are doing…interesting.” Matt’s response was equally modest, “Want to chat?” From there Matt set out traveling all over the south east, gaining contracts until his portfolio included every school in the Southeastern Conference. Within a year, Matt’s business had expanded to other NCAA schools.

The company has also earned contracts with the largest event production companies in cities like Chicago, advertising on portable restrooms supplied at city-wide events, street festivals, concerts, and marathons. “A picture’s worth a 1,000 words, but a video entices emotional response,” Matt says, showing me the company’s promotional video filmed in September 2011 at the Tennessee vs. Georgia game in Knoxville, TN. He goes on to show a picture of the areas of the country Stall Talk now services, and honestly, it looked like the screen had caught the chicken pox. The company now has exclusive advertising rights to 300,000+ portable restrooms in 84 cities in 27 states, or 20.1% of the entire portable restroom rental industry in the United States.

It’s astonishing the amount Stall Talk has grown in its mere nineteen months since its slightly-altered conception. Stall Talk has since been honored as the recipient of numerous awards and accolades and media coverage. In February 2011, Stall Talk was one of thirty Knoxville-based small businesses selected to be mentored in Knoxville Chamber of Commerce’s PROPEL Business Mentorship Program. In September 2011, Stall Talk was featured on Channel 10 (WBIR), Channel 6 (WATE), and Knoxville News Sentinel. In November 2011, Stall Talk was a co-winner of Technology 2020’s pitch competition at the Entrepreneurial Imperative Conference. In January 2012, Stall Talk won that exact same competition, outright. In February 2012, Matt won the East Tennessee Technology Council’s pitch competition and was one of two companies in the East Tennessee region given a “Platinum” ranking by Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam’s East Tennessee Regional Accelerator Coalition. In July 2012, Matt won the “Judges Best” award in the Digital Media & Entertainment track for pitching Stall Talk at Tennessee Governor Bill Haslam’s 2012 Governor’s Innovation Conference, a state-wide pitch competition held annually in Nashville, TN.