The idea for cafe-table-cum-commercial was born three years ago when Akim Rezgui and Jacques Delavault were having a drink together in Paris. As the two men talked, they examined the menu on display under the glass covering the table. "The service was so slow, I had time to read the menu twice before we got our drinks," recalls Delavault. "We thought, 'What a great place to put an ad, when you have a captive audience and people are already relaxed.' "

The two men went into business together and founded a company called Impact Diffusion. After securing 20 million French francs ($2.79 million or three million euros) from a private donor, the company bought up 8,000 tables and started putting them in cafes for free. "We needed to establish a network to sell to advertisers," explains the 25-year-old Rezgui.

It's common for beer distributors and other vendors to provide logo-bearing furniture to cafe owners, but this venture is touted as the first time an independent company has put tables in French bistros to sell them as advertising space to a third party. So far the company has handled campaigns for brands like UAL Corp.'s United Airlines, OCB (a French company that makes cigarette rolling paper), Virgin Cola and Swatch, the watch company. Along the way, they even patented their own new style of cafe tables.

The two French entrepreneurs have big plans for their petite tables. They see their mission as nothing short of saving cafe culture itself, which has suffered as-to the horror of traditionalists-fast-food joints like McDonald's have proliferated. "We want to make the terraces of France more dynamic," says the 48-year-old Delavault. "Fewer and fewer people are going to cafes every year, and we want to make cafes more interesting places for people to visit."

The outdoor advertising medium has been expanding in recent months, thanks largely to the explosion of Internet start-ups looking for a low-cost way of promoting their new brands on everything from the underside of bridges to the heels of tennis shoes.

But outdoor posters and tables like the ones owned by Impact Diffusion have attracted larger companies seeking to push individual products or special promotions. United Airlines used the bistro tables to publicise its Paris-Las Vegas route, while Siemens is expected to launch a tabletop campaign in July promoting its new C35i and the M35i mobile phones. Renting the entire network costs a total of 880,000 francs, far less than most print and television campaigns.

After Delavault and Rezgui found their inspiration three years ago, they spent the next year telling cafe owners, advertisers and customers about their idea. The first test ads appeared as posters on traditional bistro tables about a year ago, but to make the presentation more dynamic, Rezgui and Delavault decided to add a bit of depth. A traditional tabletop is 3.5 centimeters deep-the distance between the wooden top and the glass-but the entrepreneurs ordered new tables whose tops are 7.5 centimeters deep, and patented them globally.

The deeper tops allow more flexibility in the type of ads that can be displayed, including some three-dimensional displays.

For now, the partners are concentrating on perfecting the logistics of the campaigns, which are sold in 14-day slots. One of the most difficult tasks, explains Delavault, is to change all the tables at the same time. "We have a goal that on the day the campaigns change, between 6 a.m. and 9 a.m. we have 1,600 hands working on all the tables around the country so that everything is ready at once." Once the organisational side is down pat, the two hope to expand to other markets such as Spain and Italy, either on their own or through partnerships. They target revenue of 7 million francs for this year and 13 million francs for 2001.