Growing up, the scratch n' sniff concept was mind-blowing -- that just by rubbing a nail across the front of a printed sticker, we could smell chocolate. Well, today's kids are more sophisticated. So, Sunny D has introduced Peel n' Taste samples to help sell a new line of smoothies.
Welcome to the world of "sensory marketing," where companies are hoping to influence purchasing decisions through consumers' sense of smell and taste. The strips are (thankfully or sadly, depending on your desire to lick things) only being test-marketed in Food Lion grocery stores.
The Peel n' Taste samples are stuck onto a display at the front of an aisle. You can remove the front cover and then lick the sample underneath to get the flavor of the Sunny D Smoothie. They've been compared to edible breath strips -- the kind made by Listerine, for example, that dissolve on your tongue.
The flavor strips are made by First Flavor Inc.
-- the company that also introduced magazine and direct marketing
inserts for new flavors of Skyy Vodka and Diageo's Captain Morgan's
Parrot Bay Key Lime Rum.
In March, U.S. Ink introduced Taste-it-Notes, lickable inserts for newspaper, using First Flavor's patented technology. In 2008, Welch's
made news with a taste strip inserted into People magazine. A year
earlier, Starbuck's attempted to wake up USA Today readers with a coffee scent strip.
Although the strips are sealed and a significant part of the marketing effort seems devoted to assuring people that the packaging is tamper-proof and the strip is safe, it might still be hard to convince people to put something in their mouth that doesn't feel like a sample.
[Image via Flickr: hyku]
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