
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, April 8, 1994                   TAG: 9404080211
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: A-7   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: By MAG POFF STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

MOUSE WITH 9 LIVES CONTACTS HUNDREDS

The people at R. Frazier Inc. were flooded Thursday by people responding to an advertisement that ran in a national newspaper. "It's insanity," Jack Smith said of the scene in his office.

Its punchy advertisement in The Wall Street Journal reflects the increasingly national and international outlook of the small Salem company that breaks apart computers and other business machines and recycles their parts. Smith is vice president.

The ad, with its catchy "dead mouse" headline, includes a photo of a computer mouse. "We think it's time a mouse had as many lives as a cat," the ad says.

The ad solicits phone calls from people interested in recycling computers in an environmentally responsible manner instead of burying them. Companies that accept the offer share the profits with R. Frazier when the parts are sold.

The ad was written by Smith, with art by David Hodge and photography by Richard Boyd, all of the Roanoke area. It was created when Smith had his own advertising agency and R. Frazier was a client.

It appeared in the Journal's regional editions, which cover an area from New York to Florida. Smith said that's the region from which he generally gets the most responses. He runs ads in the Journal about once a quarter, sometimes in the Midwest and occasionally nationwide.

R. Frazier usually advertises in trade publications for technology-intensive industries, such as banks and travel services. But, Smith said, the Journal "appears to cut through the clutter and reach everyone." He averages 100 calls from each Journal ad, although the response Thursday seemed heavier.

The company also gets a good response from ads that appear in the Financial Times of London. The toll-free number there reaches the R. Frazier office at Dumfries, Scotland.

R. Frazier also has branches in Costa Rica and China.

The advertisement doesn't mention Salem, but Smith said "that's not my choice." He said the same ad is used in the Financial Times and in trade publications with a global circulation. The phones may be answered elsewhere, he said, so the name of the city is omitted.

Smith has run several different ads on behalf of the company. He said he plans to use this one as long as it generates a good response, then drop it in favor of a new creation.

by CNB