Edible Billboards? Drink Up and Dig In!
Billboards have always offered an in-your-face experience that is impossible with online advertising. But now, it’s evolving into a literal in-your-mouth event. Four companies have turned the everyday billboard, usually meant for looking at, into a chance to consume samples of their wares.
Free Coke
In Indianapolis during the NCAA Final Four, Coca-Cola offered Coke Zero to people at the game from an almost mile-long straw. The straw formed the words “Taste it,” and thousands did. They helped themselves to samples at six fountains positioned below the billboard.
The billboard sent the drink through the huge straw, 4,500 feet long, then down to the bottom of the billboard and into the fountains.
The contraption required more than 75 valves that used compressed air to deliver the liquid through the straw, making it look like someone was drinking from it. The quantity of compressed air used was enough to fill the entire stock of basketballs used during the tournament.
Free Beer
In London, Danish beer giant Carlsberg put up a billboard, appropriately on the side of Truman Brewery in Shoreditch, that dispensed glasses of beer to thirsty passersby.
The message on the billboard was “Probably the best…” and many pedestrians agreed. Security personnel carded people who stopped for a brew, and each was limited to a single glass. Click Here
Free Cake
Another London company offered free cake, an entire billboard of it. Made up of 13,360 cakes from the baking firm Mr. Kipling, the billboard was erected at the Westfield Shopping Centre in Shepherd’s Bush, with the message, “Life is better with cake.”
The billboard was the start of a free cake campaign to advertise their cake-on-the-go product. In conjunction with the billboard, individually wrapped cakes, up to 500 each day, were on tap at bus shelters in Tottenham Court Road. The company also has the automated cake dispensers at 18 select bus shelters in England and Scotland.
Free Dog Food
And lest our furry friends feel slighted, a German pet food company installed billboards that handed out dog food pellets at doggie height. Owners had to check in via Foursquare in order to activate the dispenser.
The combination of social media and food-dispensing billboard shows that physical advertising media and virtual marketing can work together to produce successful results for dogs and people.
Which brings up the subject of Pavlov and his experiments with dogs. Is it coming full circle? When consumers see a billboard, will they now start salivating?