This Advertising Stinks. Literally.

McCain baked potato ads use new scent technology

Bus Shelter Advertising Smells Like Baked Potato

Is the advertising world moving into Smell-O-Vision?

McCain Foods is appealing to more than just our visual senses, with a new bus shelter ad that actually emits the odor of a baked potato.

This can only mean that bus shelters with the ad will make a vast improvement in smell ... but how weird is this?

We're not talking about outdated scratch and sniff technology, here. Instead, the ad, being tried out in some British bus shelters, warms and releases the potato scent.

For now, McCain Foods is trying the advertising out in York, Manchester, London, Nottingham and Glasgow, but there's no telling if we'll see this kind of "scent"sational advertising stateside or not.

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How do they do it?

The McCain 3D ad panels actual release the smell of a fresh baked potato with the use of "a hidden heating element' that "gently warms the potato."

The warming technology releases the smell on the 3D jacket potato picture, which the company spent three months developing with a scent laboratory.

The smelly ads are part of a huge campaign by McCain Foods, and, according to a company spokesman, "3D jacket potatoes will appear at bus shelters across York, Manchester, London, Nottingham and Glasgow to heat up the nation and set taste buds tingling thanks to ground-breaking technology."

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Further, he added, "When consumers press a button, a hidden heating element gently warms the potato and releases the mouth-watering aroma of a slow oven-baked jacket potato throughout the bus shelter."

That fresh smell may get your mouth watering for the product, which actually combines "the much loved taste and smell of slow oven-baked jacket potatoes but are ready to eat from frozen in just five minutes".

So, at least you don't have to wait 45 minutes for your bus shelter potato to bake.