Today's marketing quote of the day is brought to you by Welch's, which is incorporating peel-and-lick strips into some of its magazine ads. The Wall Street Journal explains:
The front of the advertisement shows a huge bottle of the juice, while the back has a strip that peels up and off, with text that reads: "For a TASTY fact, remove & LICK."
[...]
Welch's says it suspects some folks will pass on the free taste test. "A lot of people won't lick a magazine no matter how good it tastes," says Chris Heye, Welch's marketing chief.
Scratch-and-sniff and cologne-scented ads have been around for a long time, but Welch’s is among the first to put its money where other people’s mouths are. There’s a problem, though: what about magazines that get shared, or those that are displayed sans wrapper in a store? Well, they’ve thought of that:
Readers are supposed to peel off the entire sticker on the Welch's ad before licking, says First Flavor, the company that developed the technology used in the ad. If someone doesn't rip off the whole sticker, First Flavor says, the flap can't reseal, giving people an easy way to know whether the ad has already been licked.
Even with the risk that consumers won’t respond to the ads, Welch’s is betting that its ads lead to a higher level of engagement among consumers...which leads to our second marketing quote of the day:
Getting people to use multiple senses to process ads is a good way to build a stronger connection with consumers, ad experts say. "It's hard to forget whose brand you are licking," says Lisa Haverty, a cognitive scientist who works in the marketing field.
If you want to be the first to taste Welch’s ad, look for the Feb. 18 issue of People at a store near you. Just make sure you get there first.
Photo: Welch's
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4 comments:
In my single days, I used to use the magazine samples!
I also recall a story that Ron Latham told me when he had the local Pepsi account which included Sunkist.
He had orange scented ink used to print a newspaper insert. They only did it once, because it was too overpowering.
Scented ink can be pretty cool. I saw a sample of an annual report for a spice company (McCormick, I think) and it was clove-scented. Very nice, not overpowering.
However, can you imagine picking up a magazine at the Doctor's office and stumbling across a page that had been licked by a previous reader? Ewww, nasty!
I have that issue of People. It's not really lickable, more like a foil-sealed pouch with a tasting strip (like a Listerine breath strip) inside.
As the president of First Flavor, the company bringing this Peel 'n Taste product to market, there is a major correction to the WSJ article: This is not about Lickable Ads. Welch's used the term 'lick' in their ad and no one seems to have bothered to read the fine print.
Our product, which can be attached to a print ad and peeled off, is a sealed tamper evident foil pouch containing a piece of edible film. (Similar to popular breath strips.) One peels opens the pouch and places the piece of edible film on your tongue. The edible film dissolves quickly leaving you with a burst of flavor. No licking involved!
The point that was really missed was that finally consumers now have a way of trying the taste of a product before they buy it. We call it taking a product for a 'Taste Drive'!
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