This smells weird. When Toucan Sam first told us to follow our noses to Froot Loops, no one probably ever thought we'd be taking him literally someday.
But if all goes according to the marketing plans of some of the country's biggest packaged-goods manufacturers, we'll be inhaling advertisements for the things we eat in a whole new way: by smelling them.
After dominating every form of traditional media - radio airwaves, newspaper and magazine pages and television programs - advertisers have been increasingly searching for more proverbial canvas on which to graffiti their messages.
And now, according to an article in a recent issue of Advertising Age, big-time marketers such as PepsiCo, and Mars are planning on using scent technology to lure customers toward their products in a society of rapidly shrinking attention spans. That's right, smellvertising - the latest advertising ammunition that aims to turn our society into the olfactory version of Pavlov's dogs. In an age where we're used to seeing ads on everything from pregnant women's bellies to sports stadiums; where both instant replay and our church bulletins have corporate sponsors; it was inevitable that advertising would actually start to stink. We might be used to our magazines smelling like Calvin Klein but the next generation of scratch and sniff is about to hit the airwaves, and it might smell as sweet as Russel Stover, or as hearty as Dinty Moore.
Either way, advertisers have once again proved their ability to show up in places we never before thought possible - and remind us that we should probably be buying something.
But more importantly, this sensation is advertising in a form we can't possibly avoid - thin air. The scents of our favorite (and not so favorite) products are guiding Madison Avenue to our nasal passages with no filter. From now on breathing will be brought to us by a proud sponsor. We can try our best to ignore the bells (and whistles), but we certainly can't constantly wear a clothespin on our nose. Fragrances have power and certain scents conjure up certain images, from Downy detergent to Eggland's Best eggs, smells can be loved or hated, but they can't be ignored - which is why marketers are taking advantage of the fact that air is free (for now) and that consumers don't always breathe through their mouths.
With the world as a giant air freshener the atmosphere might have a nice aroma at first, but eventually we'll be choking as it overwhelms us - which it undoubtedly will as we sniff more than Scarface and ultimately suffer the mind-numbing consequences.
The more our senses are over-stimulated by media, the less we can use them for real-world experiences. And the more entranced we become with mundane messages that have us salivating the more easily they convince us to buy in to what the ad is selling. Smellvertising is a few steps beyond scratch & sniff - we don't have the choice of scratching in this one. If you've walked by an Abercrombie & Fitch than you've been haphazardly basked with their signature scent, but what happens when it's not perfume we're inhaling, but an ad for dog food? Even the idea of smellavision has been broached - some television manufacturers are working on technology where digital signals are emitted causing our brains to activate the sense of smell to coincide with the theme of a television show or commercial. Waking up and smelling the roses shouldn't be able to be done by remote control, if we're not slaves to the television yet, we soon will be.
Maybe this is a bit extreme but I don't know many people who could stomach a McDonald's smellvertisement without throwing some said McDonald's in their own stomach. And an advertising force that strong is a force to be reckoned with.
But just think: if they're using air to advertise to us now, how long will it be before they start charging us to breathe?
