Smell-Vertising with freshly cooked baked potatoes

New adverts appearing at bus shelters across the UK are set to heat up the nation and send taste buds tingling as smell and heat is added in an innovative marketing move.

As part of a massive ad campaign McCain Foods UK will use bus shelter posters, which contain a hidden heating element and with the push of a button give off the aroma of freshly cooked baked potatoes.

The adverts are part of a campaign to launch the new frozen jacket potato product, the biggest launch by McCain Foods since McCain Oven Chips in 1979

McCain is using this unique marketing technology, as part of a £1.4 million campaign, to arouse consumers’ senses and demonstrate, quite literally, just how delicious their new McCain Ready Baked Jackets really are. It is understood that the company spent three months developing the aroma, in collaboration with a specialist scent laboratory, so that it accurately matched the scent of the product.

The Outdoor campaign will include ten fully-wrapped bus shelter specials, fitted with 2-feet high, fibre-glass potatoes, in addition to billboards, roadside six-sheets and point of sale six-sheets at Tesco, ASDA, Morrisons and Sainsbury’s.

Meanwhile in a media first, the bus shelters will also dispense money off coupons, redeemable across multiple and independent retailers, to make it easier for consumers to trial McCain’s latest product.

The campaign is set to be introduced in major cities across the UK, including London, York, Nottingham, Glasgow and Manchester.