Remove and Lick

It is a fact that more people will buy a product if they can try it first.  So what better way to allow consumers to try a product than in a magazine ad right?  I forgot to mention this is a beverage product.  Not such a good idea anymore.  This advertising method allows consumers to peel and lick a spot on an advertisement for Welch’s Juice in a magazine ad.  This is a take-off of the way that consumers have smell perfume samples in magazines by simply peeling back the slip and taking a sniff.  While this may have seemed good in theory, I suspect it is actually very gross! 

I do not think that this advertising method has the same effect that it has with a perfume or scent.  First, I wonder how good the taste is actually captured.  Not to mention the glue that consumers probably are licking along with it.  I know they wouldn’t put it out there if it was not safe for consumers, but I wonder what it actually is that they are letting us lick.  Second, this clearly is intended for single use only.  Single use only really does not reach that many people.  Remove and sniff ads are reusable and can reach countless prospective customers.  Remove and lick ads severely limit themselves.  Also, will this be used only once?  If a magazine containing this ad is in a public place, I am willing to bet that more than one curious reader will be willing to lick this ad, perhaps not realizing at the time that many before had also licked it.  I am not sure that is sanitary!  Also, if a magazine containing this ad is again in a public place, how many people will be willing to lick this ad in front of other people watching them?  They will probably be afraid that everyone will think that they are crazy because they are licking a page in a magazine!  Although a very interesting idea, I am not sure about the success rate of this method because it greatly limits the target and may just be too “out there for consumers.  If Welch’s wanted consumers to try their product they should have a free samples stand in the grocery store in the juice aisle.  That way consumers can try to product and immediately buy it.  I foresee that having a much higher success rate than a remove and lick ad.  Creative idea, but maybe new and innovative advertising is not always the best.  I believe the advertisers needed to think this through a few more times.  But it just may be interesting enough to catch the eyes of consumers.