Tag Archives: advertising

Marketing is a brutal industry and seems to stop at nothing to make a quick buck. Many advertising campaigns indeed have questionable morals. I have found two somewhat scary trends and “innovations” that are now popular in the marketing world.

One strange advertising trend is pregnant mothers selling their stomach space to advertisers. These temporary tattoo’s appeal to pregnant women who are strapped for cash and can earn several thousand dollars for doing virtually nothing (other than selling part of their body temporarily). One woman recently received $4050 for selling her belly to a gambling website on eBay. The company even wanted her to show it off at the Super Bowl. While I don’t necessarily think this is hurting anyone, I have to question if the women feels embarrassed or shameful when walking around with her stomach hanging out plastered with none other than a gambling ad. What is this teaching her unborn child?

While most of us generally don’t consciously think about what we are smelling while watching ads, some theaters in Germany are now using scent advertising to change that. Special scents are pumped into the theater for 60 seconds in order to make people to want to buy certain products. A sunscreen company Nivea used this technique by pumping the scent of sunscreen into the theater. The results were an astronomical as “Cinema exit polls showed a 515% rise in recall for the Nivea ad compared with moviegoers who saw the spot without the scent. The same ad, when combined with only a subliminal whiff of scent, scored a 25% lift.” Even our noses are not immune to the power of marketing. I wonder how long it will take for this to come to the US. Both of these trends make me further question if we really have a choice in the market as consumers when advertisers are willing to go this far?