Trendsurfing: Skinvertising (The Times)
By David Rowan
Is there anyone left who's not renting out a body part as advertising space? Suddenly every indebted student or well-endowed young woman seems to be available as a human billboard. At the right price, they agree to have a corporate logo tattooed on to their skin for anywhere between a few days and several years. But what started out as a few opportunistic eBay stunts is now stirring a bizarre new debate in the ad industry: if branding your logo on to someone's head can create buzz, what's to stop mainstream advertisers giving it a try?
Blame Andrew Fischer, the "average American Joe" who last month persuaded a pharmaceutical company to spend £20,000 renting his forehead to promote a snore remedy. The real value, of course, was in the huge global press coverage the auction generated for the client. Since then, hundreds of potential walking ad hoardings have put themselves on the market, through internet auctions or marketing agencies that act as intermediaries.
With all the available foreheads, chests and skulls currently saturating the market, it's only a matter of time before ITV issues a profit warning. Well, perhaps not quite yet: a study of prices being achieved on eBay's body-ad auctions suggests that already supply is far outstripping demand.
That means that sellers are having to be ever more resourceful to stand out. A 27-year-old Scottish woman managed to raise £422 earlier this month by renting a nine by five-inch area of her cleavage to an online casino, but that only raised potential advertisers' expectations. For the £2,100 paid to Amber Ray, the 22-year-old is having to display a commercial message on her pregnant belly until she gives birth (as Ray explained in her sales pitch, "It's much bigger than someone's forehead!").
The winners have been those who arrived early on the scene. One of the first was a US internet hosting firm, which paid Jim Nelson to have its logo tattooed to the back of his head for five years. Within six months, the company says, this brought in 500 new customers. We can't quite expect the same success for the California man who has been using eBay to auction space on his "huge" nose, targeted at companies keen to promote "nasal sprays, cold remedies, deodorants, plastic surgeon endorsements, tissue companies or other as yet un-thought-of applications". It is not entirely clear how serious the man's intentions are, but as we went to press, bidding stood at $103.
This may prove a short-term fad, but the marketing industry does seem to be intrigued by what it's calling skinvertising, tattoovertising, or, according to the context, headvertising or even assvertising. A Vancouver company called TatAD claims to have signed up more than 1,000 people willing to be paid to wear tattooed ads, and has already struck sponsorship deals worth up to $1,000. Even major brands such as Dunlop and Dunkin' Donuts have hired face space and customised hairstyles to promote new products. When Toyota launched the Scion TC Coupe, it paid a group of skinvertisers to walk around Times Square with temporary tattoos on their foreheads.
Just think what this could do for The Times. A glance across the newsroom reveals millions of pounds' worth of prime journalistic face-space going to waste. Now, who's going to start the bidding?
(The Times Magazine, February 19 2005)
Is there anyone left who's not renting out a body part as advertising space? Suddenly every indebted student or well-endowed young woman seems to be available as a human billboard. At the right price, they agree to have a corporate logo tattooed on to their skin for anywhere between a few days and several years. But what started out as a few opportunistic eBay stunts is now stirring a bizarre new debate in the ad industry: if branding your logo on to someone's head can create buzz, what's to stop mainstream advertisers giving it a try?
Blame Andrew Fischer, the "average American Joe" who last month persuaded a pharmaceutical company to spend £20,000 renting his forehead to promote a snore remedy. The real value, of course, was in the huge global press coverage the auction generated for the client. Since then, hundreds of potential walking ad hoardings have put themselves on the market, through internet auctions or marketing agencies that act as intermediaries.
With all the available foreheads, chests and skulls currently saturating the market, it's only a matter of time before ITV issues a profit warning. Well, perhaps not quite yet: a study of prices being achieved on eBay's body-ad auctions suggests that already supply is far outstripping demand.
That means that sellers are having to be ever more resourceful to stand out. A 27-year-old Scottish woman managed to raise £422 earlier this month by renting a nine by five-inch area of her cleavage to an online casino, but that only raised potential advertisers' expectations. For the £2,100 paid to Amber Ray, the 22-year-old is having to display a commercial message on her pregnant belly until she gives birth (as Ray explained in her sales pitch, "It's much bigger than someone's forehead!").
The winners have been those who arrived early on the scene. One of the first was a US internet hosting firm, which paid Jim Nelson to have its logo tattooed to the back of his head for five years. Within six months, the company says, this brought in 500 new customers. We can't quite expect the same success for the California man who has been using eBay to auction space on his "huge" nose, targeted at companies keen to promote "nasal sprays, cold remedies, deodorants, plastic surgeon endorsements, tissue companies or other as yet un-thought-of applications". It is not entirely clear how serious the man's intentions are, but as we went to press, bidding stood at $103.
This may prove a short-term fad, but the marketing industry does seem to be intrigued by what it's calling skinvertising, tattoovertising, or, according to the context, headvertising or even assvertising. A Vancouver company called TatAD claims to have signed up more than 1,000 people willing to be paid to wear tattooed ads, and has already struck sponsorship deals worth up to $1,000. Even major brands such as Dunlop and Dunkin' Donuts have hired face space and customised hairstyles to promote new products. When Toyota launched the Scion TC Coupe, it paid a group of skinvertisers to walk around Times Square with temporary tattoos on their foreheads.
Just think what this could do for The Times. A glance across the newsroom reveals millions of pounds' worth of prime journalistic face-space going to waste. Now, who's going to start the bidding?
(The Times Magazine, February 19 2005)
posted by David Rowan at Saturday, February 19, 2005
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