Innovative Coffee Aroma Ad Falls Flat

Imagine the expectation: An Indian marketing firm spent some time working on devising a technique that would enable newspaper copy to smell like the featured item. Last weekend they debuted their beautiful ad for Bru Gold coffee in the Sunday Times. The images in the ad show people sniffing the aroma in the air with another image of the coffee itself. The marketing company was excited that newspaper readers on Sunday morning would “wake up and smell the coffee” and be ready to buy it.

Sounds good, right? There was only one problem. For at least a few readers who wrote comments to the article after receiving the newspapers, the smell fell somewhat flat. One couple thought someone was smoking nearby; others just didn’t notice it. This was the latest attempt to improve on the “scratch & sniff” concept. The trouble with the scratch & sniff method is that it won’t work in newspapers, as an odorous patch has to be affixed to every paper. The new process, which wasn’t revealed, somehow works with the printing procedure. It will be a great sales gimmick once it’s perfected. After all, nothing says coffee like its signature aroma.

The intent is to plant a craving in the ad that will manipulate consumers to buy the product. Imagine reading your newspaper smelling of coffee on one page, and chocolate pudding on another. And who hasn’t caught the drift of a steak over the fire and run home to fire up the barbecue? That’s on another page. Looks like the publisher will now have to hire an odor editor! If you’re looking for aromatic coffee, any of the three below should please. You’ll have to take our word for it though – we don’t have aromatic ads – yet anyway.