Steak scented billboards - Eau de marketing? Bloom billboard smells of BBQ

Forget last weeks scented banner ads, now we actually have scented billboards. The Charlotte Observer calls is Eau de marketing, with hint of pepper. (hat tip Obsessed with conformity)

After all, you can tune out noise. You can disregard other signs. But a new smell? "It will definitely catch your attention, because we have to breathe," notes Harald Vogt, founder of the Scent Marketing Institute, a New York-based independent consultancy

I misread that as "will catch your attention, because it'll be hard to breathe". Not sure I fancy a puff of BBQ as I drive by in my Wunderbaum scented car. The billboard looks like a gigantic piece of steak stuck on a fork, declaring "flavor is actual size", and it smells of hickory BBQ , the scent developed by ScentAir. The billboard emits scents from 7 to 10 a.m. and 4 to 7 p.m., and will do so every day until June 18 reports the Bellingham Herald. I have a feeling commuters on that road will be really sick of BBQ by then. Bloom are no strangers to crazy billboards, they did after all drop a giant muffin onto a car a few years back. Their ad agency Boone Oakley brought home an Obie award for that in 2006.

From My Fox DC: Scented Billboard Gives Off BBQ Smell to Passing Motorists

The smell of steak along a busy North Carolina highway is coming from what may be a one-of-a-kind scented billboard.

The billboard is fashioned into the shape of a gigantic piece of steak on an even larger fork.

The smell of hickory BBQ fills the air thanks to a generator fan that blows the scents up to thirty to fifty yards away.

Charlotte's Bloom Grocery Store designed the billboard with the help of Scentair Technologies, which typically develops custom fragrances.

Their attempt to grab the attention of drivers seems to be working.

"With all the advertising around, you want to be able to jump out and really grab the consumer's attention," said Angie Hunter of Bloom Grocery Stores.

"Scent is the sense that is closest linked to memory and emotion, so to add scent to an environment, to what you see and what you hear, kind of completes the multi-Sensory experience," added Murray Dameron of Scentair Technologies.

For more fun billboards, check out Nike vs Gran Parma