With the Internet siphoning marketing money from newspapers, The Wall Street Journal and USA Today think making a stink will improve the bottom line. The two publications plan to test scented ads to bolster print ad revenue.
The Wall Street Journal's plan, disclosed during a recent earnings call, is still being worked out, according to a Dow Jones spokesperson, and no advertising clients have been announced.
A spokesperson for USA Today confirms that the newspaper is planning a scented ad trial shortly, in the hope that aromatic ad units will deliver better results for marketers.
The two papers are working with a company called Scentisphere, which sells a product called Rub'nSmell. Unlike the scratch-and-sniff technology that has been around for some 30 years, Rub'nSmell represents a significant advance because it can be applied directly to printed ads as an ink, says Bob Bernstein, president of Scentisphere. No separate print run to create scented inserts is required.
"Scent, until we came along, had been something that only fine fragrance companies had been using," says Bernstein. "And that's because the delivery system -- the Scratch N' Sniff or the Snap-n-Burst insert -- is a very expensive process. And there's never been an economical way for consumer packaged goods companies to deliver scent in their ads."
Subsea cable alternatives can provide a level of comfort for those concerned about disruptions. Realistically, they will continue to play a small, but critical role in the short term.
Maintaining existing network infrastructures often incurs huge technical debt before newer technologies are adopted over time.
Amid ongoing regional uncertainties, telecom infrastructure in the Middle East has expand to include terrestrial low-latency network infrastructure, which offers resilience and agility in navigating political complexities without relying solely on undersea networks.
