Scented Bus Stops? It Must Be Christmas in Berkeley.
I must admit, I was a bit shocked when I read a PR Newswire release that said there were going to be chocolate-chip cookie scented bus shelters going up starting on December 4th. But it didn’t shock me at all to find out that this was happening in my neighboring city, Berkeley CA. As many people know Berkeley is a pretty weird place with some extremely strange rules, and if you live or work in Berkeley you’ve grown to accept the bizarre as normal, and find the normal to be utterly bizarre. But, while Berkeley might embrace this olfactory advertising as normal what will the other Bay Area locations think when they are hit with a nose full of advertising?
Spike Lee and Vanessa Williams posing for milk ads.
The same folks who brought you the highly successful “GOT MILK?” ad campaign are now hoping to capture your nose. Starting 12/4/06 GOT MILK? branded bus shelters will be sporting the added aroma of chocolate-chip cookies. Hoping that Christmas shoppers will have extra-vulnerable olfactory nerves, the GOT MILK? campaign released the sweet smelling bus stops just in time for the holidays. The hope is that the smell of cookies will also trigger the thirst for a glass of milk, a trick which is very likely to work on a gullible soul like myself.
The actual scent distribution will be handled by Arcade Marketing’s olfactory scent sampling technology, called MagniScent(R). The MagniScent consists of scent-infused adhesives that are stuck to undersides of benches and the roof of the bus shelter to produce a bus stop that smells like chocolaty goodness. The California Milk Processor Board (CMPB), creators of the GOT MILK? campaign, feels that using smell in advertising is a highly underrated tool, and predict that it will be a successful addition to their already strong marketing strategy.
Mmmm, this bus stop smells great. Or does it? Photo courtesy of News.com
While I like the idea of smell-based advertising, I have one big concern. What happens when the sweet cookie smell combines with the stale urine smell that often accompanies bus shelters? I fear that it might have the exact opposite effect of what the CMPB is hoping for.
GOT BARF BAGS?
-Bill Mertz
GOT MILK?, Berkeley, scented bus shelters, smell, cookies, scent, nose, olfactory, bus stop, Vanessa Williams, Spike Lee
December 5th, 2006 at 4:39 pm
looks like the scented bus stops are no more:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/12/05/BAGQDMPQB319.DTL
December 5th, 2006 at 5:36 pm
That looks like it was just for SF. I wonder if they will hold up in Berkeley or take off anywhere else?
May 24th, 2007 at 9:42 pm
Your know end news! What is this? Discounts!
May 31st, 2007 at 4:02 pm
Very good site. Thanks:-)
September 19th, 2007 at 3:25 pm
when they say it’s ove. Stacy Fabian.
April 3rd, 2008 at 5:14 am
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