To promote the baby powder in India, Johnson & Johnson taps into the traditional perfume brands’ promo approach of placing scented ads in fashion and lifestyle women’s magazines. The brand has “embedded” the smell of the baby product into a Wednesday edition of a range of daily newspapers, such as The Times of India, The Hindu, and Malayala Manorama to raise awareness of it among parents.
The goal of the campaign by the media agency OMD was to use the olfactory-based experience to evoke sweet memories of being/having a baby. The trademark Johnson & Johnson’s baby baby powder fragrance was incorporated into the newspaper ink, which made the newspaper ad page smell “like a newborn,” without compromising the quality of printing.
The text goes in a verse format, encouraging the reader to “remember the smell of your little one when she was a little one.” The ad features an idyllic picture of an Indian mother holding a newborn on her chest. Along with appearance in major newspapers, the ad launched across eight metros.
“We felt that there was a strong connection between the scent of the Johnson’s baby powder and the millions of sweet gentle memories that parents have with their little one,” commented a spokesperson for OMD. “From this germinated the thought of a ‘scented newspaper’.”
While the J&J newspaper ad could be only smelled and couldn’t be used to evoke any other senses—tactile, for example. Unlike this one-sided project, Fanta’s print ad promoted a new orange soda flavor could be also eaten.