Got Scent?
A bus shelter usually isn’t the kind of place where people want to breathe deeply. But that may change in San Francisco at a few of the shelters that will be infused with the scent of fresh-baked, chocolate-chip cookies.
It’s the brainchild of marketers for the California Milk Processor Board, who are hoping the captive crowds waiting for a bus will be enticed to go home and grab a glass of milk after they take a whiff of the artificial scent and are cued visually with “Got Milk?” advertisements to be posted in the shelters.
When the aromatic strips are installed in five shelters in the Union Square, Financial District and Nob Hill neighborhoods starting Monday for a monthlong trial, it will be the first such campaign in the United States.
“Because no one has done this before, and San Francisco is so politically correct, there’s been concern that not everyone will like it,” conceded Molly Ireland, senior vice president of RL Public Relations & Marketing in Santa Monica, which has a piece of the milk board account. “It’s a risk. But if it works there, it will work anywhere.”
But Veronica Navarro, a street-smart 16-year-old high school student waiting in a bus shelter at Fifth and Mission streets, wasn’t so sure the goal would be realized. “It’s going to smell like cookies and bums,” she predicted.
Photo by lemon_drop.
danakeith on May 27th, 2008 9:11 pm
Hope to have one of these here, cause riding in a bus really makes me sick!
jaeda on October 13th, 2008 7:53 pm
hope it will be implemented, for the sake of those who suffering from bus sickness and i think that gives a fresh and clean air.
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