The scent of a newspaper – scratch and sniff adverts

Coles has placed scented ads in major metro newspapers to promote its Heston Blumenthal lemon myrtle hot cross buns in the run-up to Easter.

The scratch and sniff full-pager, developed by specialist scented advertising agency Reed Pacific Media in conjunction with Coles and UM, is said to reflect Blumenthal’s recipe featuring “notes of lemon myrtle and orange, with undertones of ginger.”

Reed Pacific business development manager Doug McNamee says the scented campaign is a first for Coles and fits well with the product.

He says, “Scent is really good at communicating taste, you can create visual content that plays on the taste buds and induces salivation, but there’s nothing quite like that fresh-baked hot cross bun smell that actually makes you go out and buy it.”

“I think Coles chose this channel because it is something out of the ordinary, and Heston’s cooking is always special. Print is one of the only physical mediums that gets out there, it can be implemented nationally, and the scented page can really focus on the flavour to drive customers in store – getting them hungry.”

Simon McDowell, Coles marketing and store development director, says: “For the launch of the Heston for Coles Lemon Myrtle Hot Cross Buns, we knew we could do more than just show customers – we wanted them to experience an element of the product through creative communication.

“Using innovative publishing technology, the heart-warming, sweet, spicy and specifically Australian aroma of Heston’s hot cross buns will drift off the pages.”

McNamee says Reed Pacific’s encapsulated fragrance technology is temporarily installed inline in a press, and doesn’t disrupt normal printing. He says, “The applicator sprays inline as the pages go through. It cold sets into the paper, cures quickly and leaves encapsulated fragrance on the page.”

The campaign ran nationally in the Fairfax, News Corp and West Australian papers this weekend.

Coles is not the only supermarket wafting around hot cross bun aromas to drive sales leading up to Easter – last year, arch-rival Woolworths partnered with Reed Pacific Media, Adshel and JCDecaux to run a series of scented outdoor displays.

Woolies also ran a scented strawberries and cream ad in the mX Sydney newspaper in December, and Christmas cake the previous year.

Source: ProPrint website