Edible Advertisments

Could First Flavor, a firm that makes edible films that allow consumers to sample the flavours of foods found a way to help newspapers? The papers are currently faced with tumbling revenue from advertisers.

According to an amusing short article in The Economist, First Flavor think the collapse in newspaper advertising revenue, as a result of the recession and the rise of the internet, provides an opportunity. Internet advertisements can do all sorts of things, but so far there is no way to transmit tastes electronically. Edible ads would allow newspapers to offer something the internet cannot match.

So far First Flavor has distributed films that taste of grape juice, acai-berry juice, lime-spiked rum and baking-soda toothpaste in shops and magazines, and via direct-mail campaigns. The company even designed a deliberately foul-tasting cigarette-flavoured strip to distribute to schoolchildren as part of an anti-smoking initiative. Now, in partnership with US Ink, a big supplier of newspaper ink, First Flavor has set its sights on a broader and riskier market: newspapers. Just as retailers stuff American newspapers with coupons and sales promotions, the idea is to get food and drink companies to attach a sealed pouch, containing a flavour sample, to front-page newspaper advertisements for their products.

Will it work? Newspapers tend to have a broad readership, which could deter advertisers, since the edible films may appeal to only a small proportion of readers. It might work better in magazine advertising, which can be more targeted. Welch’s, an American juicemaker, placed an edible advertisement in People magazine in order to reach mothers, for example. First Flavor’s ad campaigns on behalf of SKYY vodka and Captain Morgan’s rum were similarly specific: they involved giving out flavour samples at liquor retailers.

So perhaps not quite the lifeline the newspapers need, but it might help!