Every venue is full of print nobody reads and one small piece of print everybody handles. Most brands leave half of it empty.

Why people turn a coaster over

Waiting for a round is dead time, and picking up the thing in front of you is a socially acceptable way to spend it. Turning it over is the obvious next move.

No poster on the wall gets picked up. No table talker gets flipped. The coaster is unique in the room.

Two faces, two completely different readers

The front is seen across a table by somebody mid-conversation who is not looking at it. It has to work at a glance: bold, simple, one idea.

The reverse is read from thirty centimetres by somebody with nothing else to do. It can carry sentences, a question, a code, a date, a story about the beer.

What works on the back

Offers and codes, obviously. But quiz questions travel furthest — they get read out loud, and a mat that gets read out loud has just advertised to the whole table. Serving notes stop your staff being asked the same question all night. Event dates go home in a pocket.

Run several different backs across one print run; the setup is shared, so it costs very little and turns the mats into a set.

The cost of leaving it blank

Nothing is saved. The board is the same, the run is the same, the distribution is the same. A blank reverse is simply a placement you paid for and did not use.

We print both faces as standard for exactly that reason.